In March 1967 London School of Economics students occupy the college’s Old Theatre. In response, the college turns off the lights; the theatre is plunged into darkness.
The protest is the culmination of months of unrest and disquiet, all focused on the appointment of Walter Adams as LSE’s new director. Adams has previously been Principal of University College of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), where he co-operated with a police force that routinely arrested and deported black students. He has shady connections to Ian Smith, whose Rhodesian Front party declared Unilateral Independence from Britain in 1965 to avoid the imposition of majority (ie black) rule.
Although Britian opposes Smith, it continues to allow oil companies, in particular BP, to operate in Rhodesia. In the same year, when Biafra declares independence from Nigeria, BP supports Nigeria because it is a rich source of oil. Senior figures at LSE at the time have connections with BP.
Protests continue in various forms throughout the next two years, and are mirrored by similar student unrest around the world. In the USA the catalysts are the Civil Rights movement and America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. In France university reforms lead to student protests and, ultimately, a general strike; in Madrid, students oppose Franco; in Mexico students target the authoritarian government.
In the end, though, the leaders of the LSE protests issue apologies. LSE itself makes very few concessions. None of the students’ concerns re Adams and Rhodesia are addressed.
In 2023, theatre makers Gabriele Uboldi and Samuel Rees are sharing a mouldy flat in London. They become interested in the student protests of the past, and the light these may shed on the possibilities for change today. They visit the LSE archive, start to research the events there, and soon find connections between these and other radical movements.
The documentary drama Lessons on Revolution is their attempt to seek a way forward from the past.
Gabi and Sam welcome the audience to the Former Women’s Locker Room at Summerhall; they thank people for coming, and even hand out orange squash. They explain that they are not professional actors, and that they would like volunteers who can be called upon to read parts in the scenes to follow. (Other Fringe performers please take note: this is a particularly good way to encourage audience participation. Some people are keen, and those of us who aren’t don’t need to sit with our eyes firmly fixed on the floor for the entire hour.)
The set for the show is simple; two chairs, a desk covered in papers, slides, and an old projector. We are told that this will sometimes represent Gabi and Sam’s flat, sometimes the Old Theatre at LSE, circa 1967, and sometimes just the Former Locker Room itself. The projector is put to good use, showing us images of the protests, of the LSE library, of Rosa Luxemburg and Gabi and Sam’s own flat. The decision to use an old projector rather than a PowerPoint presentation is effective in recreating a 60s vibe. Almost everything is in black and white,
‘(that) generation are moving out of focus. We can’t imagine what he (Bloom) would be like now.’
There then follows an hour of quick fire, almost staccato, delivery of facts. About Walter Adam, Rhodesia, BP and LSE, BP and Vietnam, 1960s LSE student leaders David Adelstein and Marshall Bloom. It’s hard (or it was for me) to keep up, so rapidly are the shots fired, so often are they repeated in slightly different order. It’s appropriate, then, that we are asked to see the room as the Old Theatre, a place where lectures were delivered; this does sometimes feel like one.
But we’re not always in mid-20th century London; in between we learn about Gabi and Sam’s own trials with the London rental market. Their flat is about to lose its HMO licence because it does not comply with fire (or indeed, several other) regulations. (They quite rightly question how it has a licence in the first place…) Gabi also talks about the Gay Liberation Front, whose first ever UK meeting was held at LSE in 1970. Sam discusses a visit he’s made to Berlin, and about the optimism that the 2012 London Olympics brought.
Lessons in Revolution attempts to find connections between all of these things, to suggest that, even though many protests ultimately failed, they created a moment when change felt possible, when people could
‘glimpse the outline of something better’
I am not sure how far these threads can realistically be stretched, but I take their point; the one common factor that can be acknowledged is that in each of them, people were hungry for change, for a new world not based on capitalism and greed.
Gabi and Sam repeatedly focus on space. The students in the unlit space of the Old Theatre; the lack of work space in their tiny flat (& their landlord’s abuse of what space there is to squeeze more income from the property); the feeling of space that the Olympics (briefly) created,
‘Where did all that space go?’
In 2003 the journalist John Mair spoke with some of the students who had taken part in the LSE protests. Now in their 60s, many had become academics, activists, journalists and authors. They all looked back on their student days, as so many of us do, as a time of optimism and excitement. Many believed they really had changed the mindset of a generation. No longer would power and authority (the ‘pedagogic gerontocracy’) be acceptable without participation. But, as one ruefully commented, in the end traditional class-based authority has been replaced by the power of market forces.
Gabi and Sam are emphatic that there will be no happy, Netflix-style, ending to their story. Their own acts of rebellion have so far amounted to (accidentally) stealing a document from the LSE archive, and opening a council letter addressed to their landlord. Have they made any more, or any less, difference than the students of the 1960s?
If there is a conclusion to be drawn from Lessons on Revolution, I think it must be that we should never give up. It may have been easier, in those heady post-war years, to believe in change, but to allow ourselves to become cynical and defeated plays straight into the hands of the powerful. We can’t do everything,
‘For every story we choose to pick out another one is missing’
But we can keep hope alive, can keep the torch burning for future generations.
Lessons on Revolution is a powerful and unusual piece of work. It does feel a little ragged around the edges, but this may well be intentional; as Gabi and Sam say, nothing is clear cut, there are no simple answers. I am not sure that having audience members read parts of the script works. None of them see the words in advance, so their delivery sounds rather flat against Sam and Gabi’s strident voices. Nevertheless, those present on this, the first (and almost sold out) day of the show’s Fringe run, were enthusiastic, some rising to their feet to applaud at the end. Go and see it for yourself; it will certainly make you think, which is, after all, exactly what those impassioned agitators of 1967 wanted you to do.
Lessons on Revolution is an Undone Theatre and Carmen Collective production. It is on at Venue 26 – Summerhall – at 14.15 every day until 26 August. Please note there are no shows on Mondays 12 and 19 August. Tickets here.
