Arinze Kene Mokwe: Playwright/Actor

5th in the ABOUT TO BLOW line up is Actor, Playwright & sometimes lyricist Arinze Kene Mokwe . We caught up at the Oval House Theatre. You’ll probably recognise him as cougar-loving Connor .

Stanley in Eastenders, but there’s more to the brother than that. Arinze’s stage credits include west end productions ‘Daddy Cool ’ & ‘The Lion King ’ and after writing the hit stage production 'Estate Walls' he welcomed in the new year with his latest play entitled 'Suffocation ' as well as recently winning the 'Most Promising Playwright' at The Offies (The Off West End Theatre Awards)

I really enjoyed speaking with Mr Mokwe why? because he just draws you right in, although there were points where I thought he was away with the birds, I soon realised he was simply pondering the question. His answers were so on-point.

Arinze's a deep-thinker, v.passionate about his craft and has a voice like butta (I’m not perving...really) it’s just his words together with the tone of voice, just about sent me to la la land - in the good sense of course, not the I’m-so-bored-kill-me-now sense. I’ll stop babbling now...here you go.

So when did you get the acting bug?
I’ve loved performing since I was young, but I stopped acting in secondary school cos I went to one of those schools where if you thought acting was cool..then you were gay. But as soon as I got to college I got straight back into it. I attended the Identity Drama School and the agency attached to it picked me up and I did a theatre tour. Femi [who runs Identity] is doing a big thing; launching the careers of young, raw, black amazing talent.

Was that your only formal training?
Yeah that’s really my only professional training which was pretty cool.

...and did you always want to be a playwright?

I’ve been writing since I was 9 years old and I’d always been artistic, I loved English and if it meant creative writing I was like Yes! but if it meant reading Shakespeare I was like No! I didn’t wanna be a playwright until I started acting and I was like hold up man…nobody’s writing about this topic and nobody really wanted to... so I decided to write about it by myself.

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Now you know I’m gonna have to touch on your infamous character Connor Stanley in Eastenders...what was your initial reaction when you first read the script?
Well I was told about the storyline before the script had been written and I was quite impressed. It was an original story quite Oedipal actually...it wasn't the normal type of story written for an inner-city character so I was inspired by it.

How did your family & friends react to your love scenes with Carole? My mum was laughing. I didn't really care what anyone thought other than my mum because my mum has the power of making me feel like such a little boy, just one look and I feel five years old again so I tried not to watch it with her in the room although I did watched it once with her in the room and the butterflies in my belly were making babies duuude!

What’s changed since Connors appearance on The Square?
I've found more people recognise me now. I really didn't understand just how many people watched Eastenders until I was on it. The character was very popular within my community also so I quickly became talk among my friends.

Now your stage production ESTATE WALLS received rave reviews late last year...exactly how much work goes into a production like that?
Loads. I wrote Estate Walls at the end of 2007 and we had various readings & workshops around it, but it wasn't until we had a reading at the Stratford Theatre Royal that Che Walker [Director] came on board. So when it was actually being staged I had to let everybody else do their jobs.

I think it’s great to see more of Britain’s various sub-cultures represented on stage, but do you ever feel like you’re expected to produce a certain ‘type’ of production?
Yeah, a lot of people expect a certain ‘thing’ one of my aims is to write plays based on the complex relationships that exist within these inner city characters and surprise people by moving the characters away from the block.
Estate Walls was my first production and it’s wonderful because a lot of my influences come from being on estates and that’s something I’ve always wanted to write about. The majority of the characters I write about are inner city but they don’t necessarily fall into the stereotypes we see in everyday media.

"The Artistic Freedom Vs Artist Responsibility debate is scary; really we should be able to write whatever we want, but we have to take responsibility for our writing as we’re no longer seen as just content providers, we’re now seen as catalyst for something greater so every time we pick up a pen - the ideas we produce could either change someone’s life for better or worse"

Very true...did you grow up on an estate yourself?
I live on a road ‘in front’ of an estate and my bedroom faces the estate, so I’ve had the privileged of being able to observe rather than live on an estate. So although I go into my house everyday, I can still shout out of my window to my friend walking past..

"I spent loads of Summers on estates when I was younger...literally 12 hours straight - ya’know just sitting on an estate wall with your friends talking about girls, money and future plans, we might meet a girl or go for a little link and come back and say 'yo this is what happened' we had a little wrestle now & again and that’s just how it was. There was so much love there. Then everyone grew up and some people went this way while others went that way. I just wanted to tell the story about that beautiful moment before everyone went their separate ways"

So who are the Playwright's favourite Playwrights?
Well I'm into Sam Shepard and I really liked Kwame Kwei-Armah ‘Elmina’s Kitchen’ and Bola Agbaje’s ‘Gone too Far’ I liked Roy Williams' 'Lift Off ' and 'Clybourne Park' but In terms of Writers full stop I love Langston Hughes ’ poetry....AMAZING! I can’t get enough of him.

"What is a dream deferred" …an obvious one I know...
Nah I was reading that one the other day, I have his greatest poems in my bag actually.

(laughs) you’re armed & dangerous. Hughes was all over the Harlem Renaissance era…
Yeah, he didn't really get out of it though did he (laughs) the whole book is set in that same place. I can just see the setting and those same people. One of my favourite poems from Langston is entitled ‘Little Lyric’ (Of Great Importance) the actual poem is only 2 lines and it goes "I wish the rent was heaven sent" ...and I mean there’s A LOT to play with there. It’ll be lovely to write a play around that.

Do you still perform under the name Street Journalist? I remember you auditioning for a talent show at my college years ago under that name.
(laughs) I remember that actually, but yeah I still write rhymes I just don’t perform as a rapper anymore. I’ve sung in a few musicals and every now & then I’ll hook up with a Producer and put something down just for the fun of it. I’m not trying to take over the music industry or anything I’m just focusing on this right now.

If you weren’t acting or playwriting what would you be doing?
That’s a good question...what would I be doing?...I’d be in prison.
(dead silence)
Only joking
(both laugh)

I don’t know I have no idea but I’ll tell you one thing...I would not be in this country. I’d be in a non-English speaking country. England’s great it’s wonderful but I’m so much more inspired whilst in other countries...countries that just make me say wow.

Where for example?
Like when I go home to Nigeria. I really wanna explore Ghana and I even get loads of inspiration in France it’s crazy. For me inspiration is like food.

Do you go back to Nigeria often?
Ya know what, me and my siblings were born there.

Really? Uh huh, all of us. I came to the UK in 1991 and I’ve been back once. We went back for almost a month in 2007. I’m very in-touch with my roots. My Dad is 75 and he’s old-school Nigerian; he spent most of his life growing up there. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks and that’s a beautiful thingI’m so glad both my parents are very African, I think it’s had an affect on my story telling; just the fact that they speak differently from us, you know as Africans we like our metaphors.

Yeah we speak in parables right…
Yeah, it’s second nature to us.

Were your parents supportive of your decision to go into performing arts? As I know Nigerians are big on academics.

It did take some fighting but at the end of the day your parents can only advise you ,and if they advise you to go to university they can’t go along to uni with you or help you study. Advice is only theoretical and the decision doesn’t lie with them. For me it wasn’t a great battle as my older sister & brother did the fighting before it got to me...and now I don’t hear a word of ‘oh why didn’t you go to university’

(laughs) I bet you don't.

As a playwright what challenges do you feel Britain needs to overcome in order for inner-city style theatre to gain international recognition?

We need more plays celebrating inner city characters and showing places, situations and youth in a positive light...or even showning them in a way that doesn’t make them look apathetic, highly negative or just crazy for no reason. Yes young people are crazy but why are they crazy? ya’know what I mean, we just need to explore that and change the perception.