Come Out Eli Play Analysis

Alecky Blythe is a huge part of the development of verbatim throughout the past 13 to 14 years. In 2003 Alecky Blythe founded Recorded Delivery, a verbatim theatre company. Their first production was 'Come Out Eli' which was premiered at the Arcola Theatre in London and ended up winning a Time Out Award before it moved onto perform at the Battersea Arts Centre. The company she created then went on to make the musical London Road, which was based on the murders of five women in 2006 in the town Ipswich. The show premiered at the National Theatre in 2011 and won the Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical. London Road was also included in National Theatre’s 50th Anniversary Gala, this was celebrating the best shows ever put on in the venue’s
It was based on a stand of that was held for 15 days between the police and Eli Hall, a 32 year old man living in Hackney, East London. The play opens with a recording of alecky on the phone, during an interview to the hostage of Eli Hall, being aired over the speakers into the audience. This is a sense let the audience into the making process of the play, gave them a 'behind the scenes' (Blythe, 2008, p.89) feeling. It was involving the audience in this process which would of challenged them, as it is something that an audience wouldn’t normally be used to. It gave them a true sense of what is actually going on, and what they are about to see in front of them has came from raw material and real life. Alecky Blythe feels that this technique of showing how the play was made 'helped a great deal in gaining their trust' (Blythe, 2008, p.89). This is something she incorporated in all of her plays, for a few seconds during every performance the actors voices are overlapped with the recordings that are being played into the audience at the same