Killer Bytes Poster
Why does Silver dress up as her Gran?
Why is Eddy a messy eater?
Why does Mary want the woman with the tattoo?
Why is Coat losing his fingernails?
Killer Bytes follows these four through a vicious maze of life that’s as fast, furious and futile as a computer game.
East End Setting. Escalator plot. Sticky End?
No questions answered. Many answers questioned.
Game begins…
Killer Bytes toured Youth Clubs around London.
You can access the script of this play via the British Library’s MPS Modern Playscripts Collection.
Jacquetta May is an actor who performed with Half Moon Theatre’s young people’s company in the mid-1980s. She talks about performing Killer Bytes, a play about modern technology. Interviewed by Toni Tsaera.
Killer Bytes was a show aimed at teenagers by Vince Foxall which toured to youth clubs in Tower Hamlets, Newham, Southwark and Hackney. It went down well with our target audience, though there were a few older people who worried that the play endorsed the self-centred individualism which was (and is) a hallmark of the Thatcher government of the time. It certainly was an expression of the atomisation of society which Thatcherism was achieving, a story of four young people struggling with unemployment and family breakdown, finding escape through video games, music and crime. It was a fast-moving fantasy and a glimpse into our increasingly mediated future, played in a frantic, cartoonish style. It had a very striking computer chip design by our excellent resident designer, Mark Salkild.
You can read more memories from Matthew here.
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