little scratch: Shortlisted for The Goldsmiths Prize 2021

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The authorial figure in the book is actually telegraphed for those that read it properly. She is “R” (naturally!) I stopped playing football at secondary school. My interest in football dimmed; there was no space for it. Boys played football in PE; lunch breaks were for talking and messing. So why have I held on to the memory? I suspect it was an interest unresolved. Now, the delight of football is also my place in it. I am returning to a world that no longer has an entry fee. I can still feel like a fraud when I’m asked who I support. I imagine how a Forest fan might feel reading this, having experienced the highs and mainly lows for years, who knows the City Ground as well as their childhood bedroom. There is something territorial about football – partly because when you feel this strongly, it can cheapen the feeling to be reminded that anyone can claim the same. Our players, our manager, the game: it occupies a significant part of the imagination. Sometimes, I yearn for a team that’s been with me my whole life. I don’t want to give up Forest or Watford, what I yearn for is something verifiable. I want my love of football to sound legitimate. But I don’t need that. Not really. I have the joy of the game, and I have what it teaches me. I’ve had some really moving responses from readers who have experienced sexual assault or rape, thanking me for representing how they feel or what they went through, or a process that they found difficult to verbalise or hadn’t seen written before. I’ve also had responses from male readers saying it made them think about their own past behaviour. Both sides of that are pretty powerful and it makes me feel very proud, but it’s a strange thing to get those reactions.

The thing is the problems such as getting up, the scratchiness etc all stem from the same problem and the book goes into a dark rabbit hole, where we find out that the narrator has undergone a traumatic experience. Blisteringly honest and unflinchingly intimate, little scratch is extraordinary – and indispensable’ The I Silbert will be joined by designer, Rose Revitt; lighting designer Matt Haskins; director of music, Gary Yershon and sound designer Tingying Dong. The ordinary kindness of a distant colleague bringing a cup of tea to the protagonist’s desk when she can tell the other woman is tense, and the protagonist’s thought that, if she (a woman whose name she doesn’t even remember) can notice the change, how is it possible that her own rapist cannot see or be moved by what he has done? That ruined me. Auditory Guidance: The production uses techniques that may impact audience members who experience misophonia. There are ear defenders available at the box office.In a lot of the stream-of-consciousness style books I’ve read, especially those following characters similarly dealing with trauma and/or spiralling thoughts, I have felt a coldness and detachment that stops me fully loving the experience. Watson manages to capture wry observations and to communicate the struggles of living in the aftermath of trauma, whilst also bringing so much warmth and hope to her work. I saw Rebecca Watson at Charleston, Sussex (20.05.2022) in conversation with Lucy Kirkwood (author of Maryland), moderated by Katie Mitchell. It's clear the effort that goes into a show like this. Miriam Battye’s ability to create a stage adaptation which goes just far enough is nothing short of flawless and we are left in awe at these people who let themselves feel this, all of this, every day, as they look out to us and clearly see the impact landing. The effect of four voices overlapping, contradicting, complementing, asserting and lapsing into silence recalls Sarah Kane’s Crave and her 4.48 Psychosis, while the absence of a set designer and any movement by the actors focuses attention on the narrator’s thoughts and feelings, rather than on her body. So humour, such as the “plop” of a turd into the toilet bowl or the satire on the poetry reading she goes to, mixes with dread, as she worries about being harassed in the street or the lift by random men. All this comes across strongly. It’s a gripping production which subtly suggests, without being explicit, issues such as our sexualized culture, our drinking culture and our patriarchal work culture. But more than anything else it puts us right inside the head of a trauma survivor. It’s uncomfortable, but real. This is not just a clear-eyed examination of the outrage of rape and its corrosive aftermath; it is an experiential testament to what it is to move through the male-dominated world as a woman. It’s extraordinary – and indispensable.'

Miriam Battye makes her Hampstead debut. Recent credits include Scenes With Girls at the Royal Court, Big Small Lost Found Things at Bristol Old Vic and All Your Gold at Theatre Royal Plymouth. The text seems to be partly autobiographical. Like the narrator, Watson has worked at various roles in her life (as an assistant, waitress, cleaner) where she was at the bottom of the power chain: “I have been screamed at, groped, and patronised in various junior jobs. What has always been clear is that while some enjoy the power, others seem to genuinely believe that the divide in front of them is dictated by God, that hierarchy has a moral, qualitative value.” ( Source) She does feel rather obsessive, with a lot of swearing, but her environment is definitely contributing to this, with her boss saying to her about a lunch: That steak, Jesus Christ, bloodier than a tamponExploring how the human mind internalizes, distracts, and survives the darkest moments, Katie Mitchell will bring Miriam Battye’s adaptation to compelling life. Like a kind of modern-day Mrs Dalloway, the uncomfortable realities the character shields herself from, specifically the intrusive memory of a brutal rape at the hands of her boss, constantly spring into consciousness. There is a manic, almost psychotic feel to this woman’s inner life. It is a realm of supressed rage, uncertainty, and contradiction. Her thought processes, most viscerally her inner bargaining around her desire to self-harm, are laid out in gruesomely evocative detail. “Stop! Stop! Stop it!” she screams to herself at one point, before disassociating off into a childhood memory. The feeling of being alone in someone else’s chaotic, cluttered, wounded mind has rarely been this well communicated on stage.

Sound takes centre stage in both of our new Downstairs shows, as we welcome audiences to full capacity in the studio. When Katie Mitchell suggested I read Rebecca Watson’s debut novel little scratch, I was unprepared for how dazzled I would be by its form and sensibility. I am so excited to see how this extraordinary trio, which now includes the brilliant playwright Miriam Battye, bring this compelling story to life onstage. Somerset. Rooted in the land where she has lived her entire life, Louie Hooper’s mind overflows with its songs – more than 300 of them passed down from her mother. Cecil Sharp, a composer visiting from London, fears England’s folk songs will be lost forever and sets out on a mission to transcribe each and every one. He believes Louie’s music should speak not just for this place but for the whole of England. But whose England? Katie Mitchell will direct Miriam Battye’s compelling adaptation of little scratch. Adapted from Rebecca Watson’s debut novel, little scratch is a fearless and exhilarating account of a woman’s consciousness over the course of 24 hours. Morónkẹ́ Akinọlá, Eleanor Henderson, Eve Ponsonby and Ragevan Vasan will perform in this production from 5 November until 11 December.Some people do think it’s me; it was inevitable. It’s about rape, and I have said before [in a 2019 piece in the TLS] that I was raped, but the narrator’s experience is very different to mine; there’s multiple ways that someone can be assaulted, and multiple ways someone can react. I sometimes regret that piece, only because it acts as a springboard in interviews. It always comes up, and I really don’t believe there’s a correlation between it and little scratch, but people try to map the piece onto the novel and interpret it as confessional. This novel was never an act of catharsis. It was a joyful act of creation. Folk aired on Radio 3 in May 2021 as part of the BBC’s Light’s Up series, which turned the spotlight on plays whose staging had been delayed by the pandemic. Left to right: Eve Ponsonby, Eleanor Henderson, Morónkẹ́ Akinọlá and Ragevan Asan in Watson’s little scratch at the Hampstead theatre, March 2021. Photograph: Robert Day On her influences, Watson cited Sarah Kane (playwright); Virginia Woolf; especially Between the Acts ; Eimear McBride; Meena Kandasamy—the link is ‘performative voices’ By the end, as she slides into sleep, still pursued by the unspoken anguish she’s suppressing, the lights dim until the performers’ faces resemble masks floating in the darkness. Watching – and hearing – the narrative unspool with the theatrical mechanics laid bare makes it realer, more raw.