The musical rhythms of The Children’s Inquiry will tempt you to dance. The fantastic collective singing and dancing of a cast aged between 13 and 18 will grab your attention. The seriousness of their subject will insist on social change.
The show begins with cast members asking the audience to “Please Rise”. It instantly evokes the atmosphere of public inquiries into the system of care and later connects to talk of revolution.
Our dramatic journey of over a hundred and twenty years begins with the horrific account of the execution of Amelia Dyer, who earned money by adopting babies whom she subsequently murdered.
The case created such an outrage that it led to the Children’s Act to protect children in care twelve years later. This was just one of many measures we hear were introduced to bring about change.
However, children being largely powerless, their interests were consistently subordinated to the rule of money. Thus, we hear about the notorious export of babies to lives of abuse in Australia in the 1950s because it was much cheaper than looking after them in the UK. In a subsequent scene, the UK is shown as an equal opportunities abuser which also treats refugee children badly.
Other historical moments include the Spanish flu, the persecution of homosexuality via Section 28, the effects of poverty and the Cameron Government’s “Age of Austerity” during which there was the terrible failure of social workers in the case of Baby P.
Among the various public figures to make an appearance are the Queen, Churchill and at one point the entire cast arriving to the stage in Tony Blair masks.
Interspersed amongst the big political picture, in which the cast lip-syncs to various pre-recorded voices, are the personal stories of individuals, such as the lad shunted from foster home to foster home and the two girls whose parents are deported to Ghana.
At one point, the performers queue in single file along the back wall, each carrying a small bit of paper they drop into a box at the front of the stage as they claim, “we didn’t get a choice”. It summed up the show's central thematic link of young people defined as children having little if any say over what happens to them.
Unfortunately, the narrative is very loose and relies on us spotting the connection between the historical all sorts, while the music, exciting though it is, can, over 150 intense, similar-sounding minutes, distract from the purpose of the show.
The social care system is inadequate and needs to change, but for that to happen effectively, there needs to be change to a society where young people are constantly taught that what happens to them must be defined by others.
In school, they are marshalled in uniforms that none can choose, their minds drilled to repeat collected fragments that have no apparent purpose and their space watched over by the rule of authority. Other institutions cartwheel in conformity. Until society is changed, the care system will continue to fail its children.