Praise for Grenfell: Value Engineering – Scenes From The Inquiry

26 in The Telegraph’s 100 best cultural events of 2021
***** Daily Telegraph
‘Essential viewing… This is state-of-the-nation stuff. We’re all implicated’

***** Whats On Stage

***** The New European

**** The Guardian

‘Verbatim reconstruction of the inquiry into the 2017 disaster points up the horrifying, amoral capitalism that fuelled it’

**** Evening Standard
‘Powerfully effective’

****The Times
‘Mesmerising, informative and alarming’

**** The Observer
‘a much-needed play’

The Spectator
‘Every MP must see this play’

Next month Channel 4 will air the not-for-profit play Grenfell: Value Engineering – Scenes From The Inquiry which ran on stage at The Tabernacle from 13 October - 13 November (where it was also filmed) and Birmingham Rep from 16 - 20 November 2021. The production will be called Grenfell on Channel 4 and All 4 and is a dramatisation of verbatim excerpts from The Grenfell Tower Inquiry.

Grenfell sets out to discover why the devastating fire of 14 June 2017 happened after the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower, and who was responsible for the deaths of 72 people.

The dramatic evidence, based entirely on the words of those involved in the current Grenfell Tower Inquiry, is brought to the stage by the creative team responsible for the dramatisation of The Colour of Justice – The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry at the Tricycle Theatre, the National Theatre, in the West End and on BBC TV, and the Olivier Award-winning Saville Inquiry play Bloody Sunday.

The play is edited by Richard Norton-Taylor and directed and produced by Nicolas Kent, with design by Matt Eagland & Miki Jablkowska, Sound by Andy Graham & Matt Price, Video by Jack Fone and Costume by Carly Brownbridge. Ivan Strasburg is Director of Photography. Peter Huntley and Callum Runciman are the Executive Producers. Grenfell will feature an introduction by Jon Snow. Grenfell was acquired by Caroline Hollick, Head of Drama at Channel 4. The cast is Ron Cook, Thomas Wheatley, Sally Giles, David Michaels, Daniel Betts, Claire Lams, Tim Lewis, Phill Langhorne, Derek Elroy, David Robb, Sam Buchanan, Howard Ward and Polly Kemp.

Caroline Hollick, Head of Channel 4 Drama says: “I’m proud that Channel 4 is able to bring this extraordinary verbatim play to our screens. It is an utterly shocking indictment of the tragic mistakes, corporate greed and buck-passing of so many involved with the Grenfell tragedy – it’s hard to imagine a fictional drama cutting quite as close to the bone.”

Producer and Director Nicolas Kent added: “In the heart of one of the richest Boroughs in Europe 72 people died in the horrific circumstances of the Grenfell Tower fire, and this play looks at the causes, failures and those responsible for this tragedy, and how we can try to ensure that it never happens again.

When last Autumn we produced the play close to the Grenfell site the production was welcomed by the 4 main Grenfell support organisations. We were regularly told by residents that they hoped it would have a future life as they believed it important that people kept talking about the systemic failures which led to the fire. We are pleased that Channel 4 has now made it possible for the play to reach a much larger audience."

ENDS