Future Flares Festival: Performance (work-in-progress) - A Seventh Man by Michael Pinchbeck and Ollie Smith

Friday 24th January 2025: 12-12.45pm and 2-2.45pm

Grosvenor East Building (Studio 1.09)

Pinchbeck & Smith’s immersive performance is inspired by A Seventh Man, the highly influential 1975 book about migration by John Berger and Jean Mohr. Using verbatim interviews and photography the piece is part slideshow, part documentary, part adaptation, and explores and explodes the book to mark its 50th anniversary. It suggests that Berger and Mohr’s book has grown more relevant today than ever.

The narrative follows workers leaving home, crossing borders and facing questions about the work they do and taking medical tests to see if they are fit enough. Three performers quote directly from the book as if both narrating and acting out its portraits of a generation of young men who travel across a continent in search of a better life.