The Lynching
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| The Lynching: What They Wouldn't Let Jackie Walker Tell You | |
|---|---|
 Promotional poster | |
| Written by | Jackie Walker |
| Date premiered | 4 August 2017 |
| Place premiered | Edinburgh Festival Fringe |
| Original language | English |
The Lynching: What They Wouldn't Let Jackie Walker Tell You is a one-person play by British activist Jackie Walker.
The Lynching is a one-woman, 90-minute performance, performed by Jackie Walker and written collaboratively with Norman Thomas.[1][2] The production focuses on the lives of Walker's activist parents, her own struggles with racism after she came to Britain in the late 1950s, and what happened to her after the Labour Party was enveloped in an antisemitism row.[3][4][5][6] Some of the material on her family also appears in her family memoir Pilgrim State, while her later experience is also covered in the film Witch Hunt.
It is described as "the one woman show about a real-life witchhunt: an attempt to destroy Jeremy Corbyn and an entire political movement."[7] Walker described her treatment by the media as a "political lynching" designed "to smash the most radical political movement we have ever seen".[2] Walker adds: "This show is my chance to tell my side of the story."[6]
Overview
In the show, Walker plays a number of characters including her Jewish communist father, arriving as a refugee in New York around 1918, and her Jamaican-born black civil rights activist mother. Imagining herself on trial for antisemitism, she adopted the character of her mother to put the case for the defence.[2]
Tour
The Lynching had its premiere at Edinburgh Festival Fringe on 4 August 2017.[8]