Why I Turned Global Inequality into a Play

Inspired by Jason Hickel's book “The Divide,” Christine Bacon’s play “A Fine Idea” examines the systems that sustain global inequality.

For more than two decades, my theatre company, ice&fire, has focused on telling stories of isolated cases of injustice and human rights violations, exploring how they affect people and marginalised groups. But after reading political economist Jason Hickel’s book “The Divide,” I realised there was one issue we had failed to confront head-on: the global economic system that drives many of these injustices in the first place.

I was confronted with my own lack of awareness about why such vast inequality exists between the Global North and the Global South. I also realised that, as a company, we had not engaged in a meaningful way with Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is arguably the most under-fulfilled human right of them all, affecting billions of our fellow human beings:

‘Everybody has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of himself and his family …’

I reached out to Jason Hickel, and we had many long conversations. Jason previously worked in international development and was a passionate believer in the narrative of aid as the solution to global inequality. But once he started digging, that belief was shaken to its core. Those conversations are what finally led me to write a play called “A Fine Idea.” The play looks at human rights in a more expansive way, drawing our attention to the structural drivers of an extreme status quo. I wanted to explore whether theatre could help audiences engage with ideas traditionally confined to economics books, policy papers and academic conferences.

Much of the action takes place in Kenya during the June 2024 Gen Z uprising. This historic mobilisation saw massive numbers of (mostly) young Kenyans take to the streets to demand that the Finance Bill 2024 be rejected and not passed into law. Crucially, these young protesters were explicitly joining the dots between proposed sweeping domestic tax hikes, including on basic goods like bread and cooking oil, and the rigid conditionalities attached to International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans. What began as peaceful protests turned deadly; scores of young Kenyans were killed by police, many were abducted, and some remain missing.

This is not an isolated phenomenon. This youth-led resistance represents a tectonic shift echoing across the Global South. In recent years, from Kenya to Nepal, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Morocco, Madagascar and Indonesia, a new generation is rising. They are refusing to accept the suffocating logic of austerity imposed from afar.

Conversations with Kenyan activists and experts, including the incredible Wanjira Wanjiru have deepened our understanding of these protests and the profound economic questions surrounding them. While most people in the Global North view the Bretton Woods institutions as positive or neutral, Wanjira pulled no punches when we asked for her perspective, describing them as “a cancer within our continent.”

What made me write this play is not simply the scale of global inequality, but how normalised it has become. We treat poverty, debt and inequality as facts of life rather than the consequences of economic systems shaped by political choices. “A Fine Idea” is an attempt to open up that conversation and ask whether a different future is possible.

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For those interested in exploring these questions further, “A Fine Idea” will run at the Arcola Theatre in London from 11 June to 4 July. EQUALS podcast subscribers can access £15 tickets using the code 15JO. I’d love to see you there ―and please share these details with anyone who might want to join the conversation.

On the final performance on 4 July, Jason Hickel will join us for a post-show discussion to explore the themes of “The Divide” and the wider questions of global inequality raised by the play, followed by an audience Q&A.

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Author: Christine Bacon is the Co-Artistic Director of ice&fire theatre and the writer of the play “A Fine Idea.” She is also trustee of the Student Action for Refugees.

Listen to our latest episode with Guy Standing on the profit-churn approach of modern education, inequality, basic income, and how to reclaim common goods.

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