A Call for Accountability in the Metropolitan Police | An Interview with Moonstone Theatre about ENOUGH.

Bringing a play like ENOUGH. to the Edinburgh Fringe is no small feat. For Moonstone Theatre Company, the journey was as much an emotional challenge as it was a logistical one — from raising the funds, navigating the demands of the world’s largest arts festival and transporting an entire company to Edinburgh, to holding the weight of the story itself. This is a show that doesn’t just entertain; it confronts.

Winner of Best Drama at the Greater Manchester Fringe, ENOUGH. follows Irie, a new police recruit battling systemic injustice within the Metropolitan Police, and was inspired by real events, including the Met’s shocking response to the 2021 Sarah Everard vigil. It’s a piece that demands bravery not just from the actors on stage, but from the creatives behind it, a team determined to hold up a mirror to power, complacency and the cost of speaking out.

When I sat down with the cast during their run at theSpace on the Mile, what struck me most was the mix of pride and vulnerability they carried. They spoke openly about the highs and lows of their rollercoaster ride to the Fringe, the responsibility of giving voice to such an urgent issue and the resilience it took to get here. Their story, much like the play itself, is one of courage, community and women who are refusing to be silenced.

TRANSCRIPT

(0:00 - 0:11)

Hello, I'm Ruth and I'm the Arts Business. I'm here with the awesome cast of Enough and I'm going to be asking you a few questions. So let's get started with, tell us as briefly as possible what your show is about.

(0:12 - 2:06)

I'll pass it to Emily, the writer. Excellent. Thank you.

So our show is about a young mixed-race female recruit who joins the Metropolitan Police to kind of make a difference, represent her community. And the story is a 45 minute drama that kind of looks at the trials and tribulations that she goes through on this journey. Perfect.

And what inspired the writing? What inspired me was the Metropolitan Police response to the Sarah Everard vigil. I felt in light of what had happened, it seemed a disproportionate response and it just didn't sit well with me. And that was the inspiration for the piece that kind of set me off on a pathway of trying to speak to officers both serving and retired to try and kind of get some scope of what really goes on and how that could have happened.

And then that kind of set me in motion on this story of writing this character of Irene. It felt very authentic. Is that a lot of research behind that? There is a lot of research.

I have never been in the police, so I was very keen to make sure I spoke to as many officers as possible. And I managed to speak. It's very difficult, as you can imagine.

People don't always want to speak out. And some people who have been whistleblowers have had very bad experiences and kind of kicked back from that. But I did get to speak to people.

They kind of told me their stories. I got to ask them questions. And that kind of groundswell of research helped me to kind of make it feel authentic, I hope, and real.

And we've done three versions of Enough from kind of Manchester to Camden to Edinburgh. And I did have one of the officers that I spoke to, she did actually go over and just say the odd word here or there, if you just change that, that makes it feel even more real. So I've been very lucky to have that support.

Do people feel like a change is happening and getting women and black people better represented? Or do they feel like it's stagnant? In the force? I mean, that was not what I found. I mean, I think it's something like 80% of the force is male and 79% is white. So you've got a broad force that are Caucasian white males.

(2:06 - 5:32)

So when you have someone who is a person of colour, who is joining the force, that's very difficult because those systems, those closed systems already exist, and they're very difficult to break. Why did you decide to bring it to Edinburgh? Okay, so Edinburgh was a dream of ours from the beginning. It's one of those bucket list things that we, you know, we wanted to do.

So we did Manchester two years ago. We had great feedback, we won Best Drama, so we actually did another run in Manchester. Then we felt like we'd exhausted the Manchester audiences because it's all our kind of network of people around there.

So we decided last year to go to Camden Fringe and try it on a response and great reviews. So we felt like the next place for it was Edinburgh. We thought it deserved the Edinburgh Fringe, which is obviously, you know, the biggest fringe we've got.

We're lucky enough that Emmeline's got family from Edinburgh. So we've got somewhere to stay. So that really definitely helped us decide because we didn't have to forecast the accommodation as well as everything else because obviously we know it's all very expensive.

So yeah, so we thought let's do it this year. It just felt like we've done it for the last two years. It felt like a great place to, you know, whether it is the final time we do it or not, we don't know.

But at this point we just thought let's try and get it into a different audience again than the ones we've had before. So do you have a place you want to take it? Do you want to take it outside of Fringe? Do you want to make it bigger? I'll take that one. So one of the things that came up in like a couple of the reviews is kind of how televisual it feels.

And that is something that I would really love to do is to do some screenwriting as well, just because I feel like there's more to this story and how it's been. It's always been crafted as kind of a black box studio piece. And, you know, we haven't had any support.

There hasn't been anyone kind of telling us how to develop it or make it better. But I've kind of been reaching out to certain people and they feel like there is a nugget, there's something in this. So we'd love it if we could either get into the touring theatre to keep it going in the theatre or look at if there was some way of kind of making it somehow visual on the screen.

That would be amazing. Where have you all come from? I'm guessing Manchester. Yes.

Yes. So I'm from Cheshire. I'm from Luton originally and then I moved up to Manchester after a brief stint in Wales.

Oh, nice. It wasn't nice. It's a lot of where Irie kind of gets her like her story, I suppose.

I was saying to Emily earlier, like it's sometimes quite difficult to find where Irie ends and Ria begins because there's so much of the experience that I experienced in Wales in the character. So no, it wasn't nice. But yes, I've come from Manchester now.

Great. And Emily. Yeah.

Yeah. And we say we're from Manchester because no one ever knows where Cheshire is. But yes, we are.

I'm near Cheshire. Excellent. I like it.

We're staying with my friend who's originally from Sandburg. No way. We won't say, but very close.

Very close. Excellent. Yeah.

No, Sam. I know Cheshire very well. Awesome.

And what do you all do for a living? Are you professional theatre makers, writers, actors? We wish. Yeah, we wish. I'll answer me and I'll pass it around.

But we're all professional actresses and we're all kind of represented and always kind of grafting for, you know, those jobs in whatever form. But we all have muggle jobs as well. So I work in, I've worked in education as a kind of behaviour management consultant.

(5:33 - 7:05)

Yeah. So I have a couple of businesses as well because I wanted the flexibility to be able to work myself. So I've got a website business and a travel business.

So I just work that around any acting jobs that I get. So. I'm a full time teacher.

And the last two years I've also been director of pastoral for year 10 and year 11. So it's been a lot of hard work. But yeah, we're all professionally represented and that's what we'd love to do.

That's the dream ideally. Do you have flexibility in your school? No, not really. So I suppose for the last five years, I've just kind of been doing back to back shows where I can.

I'd finish school, then we go straight to rehearsals and holidays where I can. It's it's it's the dream. I mean, you've just got to keep fighting for it.

Absolutely. And how did you fund and budget this production? So this one in particular, we were lucky enough to receive the Keep It Fringe fund. So we knew about it before we decided to do Edinburgh.

We were going to come to Edinburgh anyway, whether we got it or not. But obviously that has been a massive help for us. So we filled in the funding application and I think it helped because we knew the play inside out.

We knew what kind of effect it had on audiences already. So we put that into the funding application. And yeah, we were lucky enough to get it.

So that's massively helped. And it's helped us kind of promote it more. So we've spent more on advertising so that we can get more people here and see it.

So amazing. Do you have a rough idea of what your budget was in order to be able to come up here? Obviously, you're saving on accommodation. So that's a win.

(7:05 - 8:23)

Do you want to answer that? No. No, I don't. I think I think what what I can honestly say is we didn't realise how expensive Edinburgh was in terms of we had budgeted for travel, for accommodation, for the marketing, and that's online marketing and digital marketing, and then like the boards and the posters and the flyers.

And actually, everything is so much more expensive than you think. And even though we had planned to come up no matter what, I think we would have really struggled if we hadn't have got the Keep It Fringe fund. And then even just being up here, we are up here for kind of the best part of two weeks.

And the amount that we've spent just existing in Edinburgh, it's a really expensive place to be, especially when Fringe is on. So I'm not sure of the exact budget of what we've spent, because we'll be totalling that up. But yeah, we got awarded the full amount for the Keep It Fringe, which is two and a half grand.

And I don't really know what we would have done without that money. That's incredible, though. At least you've got that as a sort of cushion as well, rather than you guys putting your own money into it.

We wanted, because we all have jobs and we all have to sustain, you know, our families and our lives at home, we didn't want anyone to come and be out of pocket. We just wanted to try and be able to cover the cost of coming to Edinburgh and putting on this show. And what's the hardest part been in preparing this show? I feel like I'm talking to you.

(8:23 - 9:30)

Do you want to? I feel like, yeah, let's give this one to Ria. I feel like Ria has the hardest job. I feel like it's been effortless in the sense of our process.

And we trust each other so much. And we've worked, I'm going to get emotional because we just finished the show, but we've worked together for so long now that actually the hardest part is trying to get people to see what we have, because we know that each one of us has each other's backs no matter what. And I think, yeah, obviously there is that, for my character, there is that hard part of the emotional journey that she goes through, because like I said, I'm so connected to the character because of how beautifully she was written and how respectful Emily was in writing.

I think during, obviously, when they'd cast me, when they both cast me and we'd gone through the script, we'd had discussions about adding bits and pieces that were more authentic to my experience as a woman of colour. But yeah, I genuinely think the hardest thing is getting people to come and see what we have, because what we have is something that is special and something that is important. And have all of you been on this since the beginning? Yeah, we're the original cast.

(9:31 - 10:22)

We are missing one, I don't know where... I don't know. Kitty is our director and our sound manager and tech and whatever. So yeah, she's been there throughout.

But our rooted cast are here. So you get to develop it together. It has been incredible.

Every time we're like, yep, we're doing enough, we sit down and we develop it and we look at it and there's just those little nuances that are added each time. And I think that's, yeah, it's been amazing. Did you all meet through this project? Yeah, so me and Emily already know each other beforehand.

So we kind of decided that we were like, we were sick of not getting work and we wanted to make our own work. So we decided to set up our own theatre company to put on. And the original plan was, let's aim for the Manchester Fringe.

(10:22 - 10:30)

So Emily wrote it. And while she was writing it, we decided we needed to cast the third part. So we put out a casting call for the role of Irie.

(10:31 - 10:46)

And we saw quite a few talented people, but we were lucky enough to find Ria, because yeah, she just fitted it like a glove. So that's how we all met. And what's your daily schedule look like during the Fringe? Every day is different.

(10:49 - 11:06)

Coffee, lots of coffee. And then we've been trying to do some touristy bits while we're here, because, you know, it's not often you get to come and experience Edinburgh for as long as we have. Looking after ourselves, we made a big batch of soup to make sure that we weren't like, because apparently the Fringe flu is real.

(11:06 - 11:29)

It is real. You're not the only person to say bring food. How do you handle marketing, flyering, social media, PR for everything that you're doing? Yeah, so I'll start and then I'll pass it to you.

(11:30 - 11:40)

So yeah, so we've been on a journey with the marketing. Our artwork is completely different now. There's like three different versions every year, like there's one for each year now.

(11:40 - 12:00)

But it's really interesting to see how it's come on since we first started it. And we really, this time, because it was, I suppose, because it was Edinburgh, we put a lot of time into what is our marketing going to look like? And we want it to be, you know, as good as it can be. So yeah, the first thing for Edinburgh was to work out what our main image is, because that's so important, you know, it's going everywhere.

(12:01 - 12:21)

And then between me and Emily, we've just been kind of kind of trying to create as many kind of social posts as possible. On the previous runs, we've done a lot of kind of Instagram and Facebook. But this time, Emily decided to tick tick tock tick tock was going to be our new marketing.

(12:26 - 12:42)

So yeah, we've embraced it. We've embraced everything this time, basically, just, you know, trying to kind of get, you know, all the kind of the outdoor advertising, the digital advertising, the social media, all that. So yeah, if you want to talk a bit more about that.

(12:42 - 12:50)

Yeah, I kind of just echo everything. It takes so much work and momentum. And I think one thing that people need to understand is you can't do this like a month before you come up here.

(12:50 - 13:08)

This has been a year of planning. We started off looking at last year's posters in October, maybe September, even just kind of what stood out, what caught our eye. What do we want to kind of create? And then within that kind of to refresh our marketing from Camden, we were lucky enough to have a Manchester-based photographer that kind of took some pictures for us in situ.

(13:08 - 13:23)

Shout out to Joe Finn Photography. And those pictures meant that we could kind of put quotes and our stars on from previous reviews to just kind of build the hype. And it was it was it was months of just drip feeding, drip feeding, drip feeding to kind of get that awareness out there.

(13:23 - 13:44)

And even though everybody, you know, is kind of shied away from X than they have done in previous years, that is still a way that we have kind of reached out and met reviewers and people have come to see the show. So I think you have to be open to using every platform and don't just stick to what you know or what you like. What do you wish you'd known before you came to The Fringe? How expensive everything is, is my one.

(13:44 - 13:56)

Like I didn't I didn't really comprehend how much everything would cost. Like coffee, five pounds, sandwich, ten pounds, like everything just adds up and up and up, especially, you know, we're only doing eight nights. If you're staying for longer, you have to really think about how much it costs.

(13:56 - 14:18)

I was going to say as well, like the relentless every day needs to be like plugging the show or going to do flyering or or do it like doing something that means that people that there's going to be bumps on seats and the people are going to see it. I think I definitely yeah, you can't take your foot off the gas. And I definitely wish I'd known that to just kind of rest up before we take we're ready to fire through for a week.

(14:18 - 14:33)

I mean, hats off to anybody who's doing the full month without a break or at least one day without a break. What advice would you give to first timers thinking about doing it next year? Start planning as early as possible. I think that's what really helped us.

(14:33 - 14:42)

We as soon as we done Camden, we knew we were going to do Edinburgh. So we just started a year ago deciding what we were going to do. The first thing was, where are we going to the venue? That was kind of so important.

(14:42 - 14:51)

What venue we were going to get. Why did you decide on space? Well, we we looked at several venues. Kitty, our director, has already done Edinburgh Fringe before.

(14:51 - 15:02)

She had insight into knowing what the different areas were, because I didn't know, Emily didn't know. We didn't know, you know, what the options were. So we kind of we kind of limited it down to a few options.

(15:03 - 15:13)

And then I had a long conversation with Charles, who runs the space and does all the booking. And we love the fact that you get so much support with the space. You know, you've got the press office.

(15:13 - 15:23)

They help you with all that. You feel like the rooms like, yeah, we could fill 55 capacity. And it was it was written for a black box theatre.

(15:24 - 15:35)

Sorry, it was written for a black box theatre space. So that's kind of why we ended up, you know, kind of looking more towards the space, because they had those spaces available. And then, like Gemma said, then she kind of went into discussions.

(15:35 - 16:06)

And the space on the Mall with this particular space, we just thought fit perfectly with the staging, the kind of diamond, diamond shape of everything. Other than soup, do you have any tips for managing burnout or catching fringe flu? Chicken soup, manuka honey and any type of like lovely tea, like echinacea tea, chamomile tea. You really do have to look after your voice, especially if I didn't take this into account, is when you're flyering all day and you're talking to people, you're wearing your voice down and then you've got to kind of rest up.

(16:06 - 16:16)

So lots of lovely hot liquids and soothe your throat. Anymore? I think it's just making sure you're well fed with vitamins. Like we've been like, I don't know what I just need some fruit.

(16:17 - 16:25)

Like I need something that feels good for your body. So yeah, plenty of fruit, plenty of water, staying hydrated. And yeah, vitamins.

(16:25 - 16:41)

I think we're all popping like vitamin C, like it's going out of fashion at the moment. And we'll go along the line for this one. Can you, starting over here, sum up your fringe experience in one sentence? Do I have to start? Well, you can delegate.

(16:42 - 17:01)

What was the question again? Sum up your fringe experience in one sentence. My fringe experience has been inspirational, fun and the most incredible thing I think I've ever done. No, you've got to follow that now.

(17:01 - 17:11)

I can't follow that. OK, one sentence. Overwhelming, but utterly brilliant.

(17:12 - 17:25)

Just going to leave it at that. OK, so my fringe experience in one sentence has been like living every day with my family. Sorry.

(17:27 - 17:33)

I honestly, I'm very, very lucky. Very lucky. So I would sum that up and say that I'm exceptionally lucky.

(17:35 - 17:48)

And finally, where can we find you? You've only got a few days to go, but shout out about social media and following. I must have a cold heart. You're too into your character.

(17:49 - 18:00)

Yeah, I am to be fair. Oh, I've turned into my character. Sorry, what was the question? Where can we find you? Social media, where do you? OK, so moonstonetheatre.co.uk is our website.

(18:01 - 18:15)

Moonstone underscore theatre on Instagram. Moonstone plays on X. And we're on TikTok, moonstonetheatre on TikTok. But yeah, if you go to moonstonetheatre.co.uk, we've got links to everything on there as well.

(18:16 - 18:20)

So we can all follow where you might take it next. Yeah, definitely. Brilliant, thank you very much.

(18:20 - 18:20)

Thank you.