The Diaries: There’s a faith in every dream

This is was performance and sound piece for radio that used the ‘video diary’ genre to tell stories about conflicts experienced by four weird and wonderful young Black people. Selected pages from their diaries reveal challenges working in Marks & Spencer, living in the twilight world and raving from club to club, addicted to scratch cards, being abused, depressed, homeless, and searching for love. Their individual journeys don’t conform to stereotypical notions of the Black experience.

The Diaries was written and directed by McMillan, and created through a devised and improvisation based process with performers, LLewellyn Herbert, David Attride, Leah Chillery and Angelina Taylor, who had been in various productions at Nottingham Playhouse such Hip Opera, Presh, The Barricades Project and Avalanche on the main stage. They were also the cast in the final piece. Music and acoustic vibes were created by David ‘Stickman’ Higgins and Biant Singh.

The Diaries was broadcast on Monday 26 October 1998 on 107.6 NOWFM as part of Now Ninety8 Festival’s Venue in the Air in Nottingham.

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