The first play heard little from the families, but here Tanveer Ghani (quietly dignified as Imran Khan QC, counsel for survivors and residents) reads the harrowing story of Afghan refugee Mohamed Amied Neda who died alongside several members of his family, and the evening opens with the testimony of Hisam Choucair (an impressive Shahzad Ali) whose account of how families were treated by over-bureaucratic and insensitive agencies shames us all. Adel Chaoui, who lost four members of his family, said: “We knew after phase one of the inquiry [which ended in 2019] why the building went up in flames … There is criminal activity that could have been prosecuted there and then.”

The playbe staged by three West London venues throughout 2023; the Playground Theatre (February 18– February 25), the Tabernacle (February 27 – March 12) and the Marylebone Theatre (March 14 – March 26). But wiping away tears after the hearing closed, Hanan Wahabi, who lived on the ninth floor and lost five members of her extended family who lived in a 21-floor flat, said: “It’s been a long road and it’s another long road coming.”

NEWS

Your support changes lives. Find out how you can help us help more people by signing up for a subscription It’s almost six years since fire engulfed Grenfell Tower in West London, killing 72 people. But in spotlighting the level of outrageous arrogance, dismissiveness and callousness that characterised the real world inquiry, this play gives an outlet for fury that has continued to simmer. But the fire brigade was not the only organisation to fail people. We hear from a long line of organisations that had good evidence of the lethal danger of the situation facing Grenfell and did nothing about it. This raises the question of how to respond to Medea, who kills her children when betrayed by her husband. I think it impossible to make this explicable by argument. A programme note compares other more recent female revenges. But cutting up your husband’s shirts is not much of a comparison. Not only because Medea’s violence hurt people. Not only because those people were children. But because Medea simultaneously wounded herself. The success of the play depends on general plausibility being swamped by the strength of theatrical feeling.

As Scotland Yard wait for the final report before moving towards potential criminal charges, any trials for offences ranging from corporate manslaughter to fraud may not start before 2025, more than seven years since the disaster, the Guardian understands. This means the story of how an “entirely avoidable” disaster was allowed to kill 72 people is still known by far too few. This limited season is brought to the stage by the creative team responsible for Grenfell: Value Engineering at The Tabernacle, Birmingham Rep and on Channel 4, The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry – The Colour of Justice 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. Delving into the vital questions that emerged from the lengthy Grenfell Tower Inquiry that followed the fatal 2017 fire, the play is based entirely on the words of those involved in the final phase of the Inquiry that ended in November 2022. In particular, the production looks to interrogate the following: Criticisms could be made: at times it would be difficult to follow the exact significance of what is being discussed without pre-existing knowledge and there are inevitably things left out, such as the extraordinary testimony of former employees of insulation firm Celotex.

Laboratory

Grenfell System Failure: Scenes From The Inquiry is based entirely on the transcribed text of the final phase of the Grenfell Inquiry, which ended in November 2022. Issues regarding the failure of testing protocols, the oversight of manufacturers, and more are called into question as politicians and government regulations are put under the microscope. Grenfell: System Failure asks further vital questions raised by the Grenfell Tower Inquiry since the critically acclaimed 2021 play Grenfell: Value Engineering.