09 Jan 2024
 

“Risk, excitement, and actors doing amazing things!”
The playwright Joe Ward Munrow spoke to Damon Fairclough about The Legend of Ned Ludd.

What’s The Legend of Ned Ludd about?

It’s a play about work and automation. It explores what happens when machines make decisions rather than humans. It's about what happens when our autonomy is taken away by machines and algorithms.

Who was Ned Ludd? 

Ned Ludd was the mythical leader of the Luddites, who were British weavers and textile workers who resisted the adoption of new machinery in the early nineteenth century.

They were set to lose their work so they did a lot of things in protest, but what they're famous for is breaking machines – literally destroying the technology that took their work.

Ned Ludd is interesting because he was their leader, but he didn’t actually exist. If anyone asked who broke that machine, the weavers could say Ned Ludd did it – so no one could be blamed.

He took on an almost supernatural status, a bit like a vengeful superhero who could do these amazing things and not get caught. He became like a mythical hero of the workers.

Why did you place this story at the heart of the play?

The Luddites were the first documented people to struggle with the problem of what happens when technology takes your livelihood.

Pretty much all of us are concerned with that question now, but they were the first. There's also lots of good documentation about them. They were very active and vocal so there are plenty of records to work with. 

The Legend of Ned Ludd doesn’t work like a conventional play. Can you explain what’s unusual about the way it’s written?

The play's about automation, so one of the things that happens is that a machine will randomly pick the scenes to be played each night.

There are 23 written scenes, but during the show the machine will select only 15 of them to be performed, and that’s going to happen live in the theatre. Audiences and actors won’t know what's going to happen before the machine makes its choice – so it's really exciting.

There are 256 possible versions of the play. Because of the random element, that means it'll be different every night. 

Why did you take that approach?

I'm interested in work, and also really interested in allowing the audience to see the work that an actor does on stage. There was one version of this play that had a simple, linear storyline without extra scenes but then I thought that, if I'm writing a play about work, then I should probably put the work in as well.

The play is about globalisation and it's about a machine making decisions rather than humans. Having more scenes than needed, allows a machine to pick those scenes and clearly takes an element of control away from the actors. There’s something about this which mirrors some of our bigger worries about technology.

The play isn’t just about the Luddites is it? The machine selects scenes that tell stories from all over the world – from different moments in history. Why is that?

I think if you try to capture the essence or energy of capitalism and globalisation, you need a truly global play. Therefore, you have to explore all these different places and all these different workers, and then throw it together to get that feeling of just how complex the system we're living in is.

Your work isn't just about earning money. It informs the way you feel and how you behave. That's why when the mining communities lost the mines it wasn't just money – for a lot of people your work informs who you are.

How did you select the different times and places you wanted to write about?

One of the things I came to, after a lot of trial and error, was having each scene in dialogue with another, so there are American scenes that are in dialogue with scenes set in China – and that’s related to their status as superpowers, all that stuff.

Even though you won’t see all the scenes – because the machine makes its selection – the script itself is still in dialogue with itself. In some ways it's like the conversation we're all having about artificial intelligence. Some people say it's going to solve everything. Others say it's just going to destroy everything. So we have these conversations about work and livelihood and meaning within the framework of the play.

But one of the main things I want to happen is that, in spite of the play’s complexity, I want people to enjoy it, so the Luddite scenes act as the spine of the play. We return to the story of Ned Ludd and those scenes hopefully allow us to feel safe and supported and not overwhelmed.

Are you hoping people will see it more than once?

Yes! There are 256 potential versions, so you're almost guaranteed to see a different play each time. 

And if you see it again, you'll get certain elements that you haven't seen before, but they'll still echo with what you've already seen, so you'll get a greater understanding of the whole. 

However many times you see it though, you'll always get to see actors making real live choices, and see the amount of work involved in what they’re doing. That's really exciting.

How has the play developed since you first had the idea? 

I started working on the play a long time ago and it went through many different versions and then it had a workshop at the Everyman – this was pre-pandemic.

It’s taken me about six years to get it to this point. Sometimes I’ve felt very lost with it because of the random-machine element. What's really lovely is the way actors respond to it – they get it and enjoy it, and you can just feel instinctively that even though its structure does seem complex on the page, there’s no reason why it shouldn't work on stage.

Having read it, the structure is definitely unusual and exciting, but it’s a very accessible play.

That's one of my things as a writer. I live in Liverpool but I grew up in South London, and I always ask myself if my mates and I would have enjoyed this play if we’d seen it when we were 15. Would we have felt it was talking down to us, or that we were part of it? 

So, in all my plays, I try and make sure that, first and foremost, they're enjoyable. And that they’re not patronising people and that there’s isn’t some kind of overly intellectual game going on which actually isn’t much fun to watch.

Do you have any ideas for the form the machine will take? Or will you be leaving that up to the director and designer?

The big question is just how bonkers do you go with it? I do have images of cogs and pistons and stuff, but that's just my imagination, because I don't control the purse strings! I think it’s a really nice offer for a director and a designer to play with and make their own.

But I do have visions of something a bit clanking and scary and has a presence in its own right. People have said that the machine is a character in the play, but I also think technology is also becoming a character in its own right in our lifetimes. We’re going to have to think about our relationship with it in a different way. 

What were your influences while you were working on this play?

One of the most inspiring things has been a book called The Writings of the Luddites by Kevin Binfield. It’s a big tome of letters written by the Luddites and full of details that really bring home how traumatic that time was for them.

We call people Luddites now without really thinking about what it means, but these people were talking about not being able to feed their kids. So the Luddites’ own words were definitely an inspiration.

I also think a large part of the play is informed by the internet. Not its content, but the ‘feel’ of it – the way we chop and shift, and what that does to stories and to our brains. I think the play mirrors what the internet feels like.

What do you think audiences will find exciting about this play?

The elements of liveness and risk – the way the play feels spontaneous. 

I’m looking forward to seeing people realise that the actors really don't know what's going to happen!

Who’s going to love this show?

Anyone who loves the liveness of theatre, anyone who wants to see a show that has an element of risk and excitement and likes seeing actors doing tricky and amazing things.

And also, I think people who are interested in the history of work and class, and especially – I think this is everyone now – if you have concerns about automation, jobs and AI, and what the future of work looks like.

The thing is, we have to understand our past first. We're not the first people to wrestle with this dilemma, and this play focuses on all the people who were worried about these things, and what they did about it, and what the fallout from that was.

The Legend of Ned Ludd is at Liverpool Everyman from Sat 20 Apr to Sat 11 May 2024 - click here to see the performance diary.