Coaxed into playing a racial typecast in a fellow student’s play, black drama student Jonathan is faced with an all too familiar decision: to challenge prejudice, or play it safe.

 

Jonathan is out of place in his middle-class London drama school. Pigeon-holed for a role as a Black hoodlum in a classmate’s play and coaxed by his teacher to take the typecast part, Jonathan decides to demonstrate to his peers the prejudices, during a class role play exercise. "Play It Safe" is a story about implicit bias: unconscious racism by those who think of themselves as above prejudice, but whose conditioned racism is just as impactful as those who wear their intolerance proudly.

 

Jonathan’s realisation that he is not in a liberal safe-space, but that his alarmingly well-intended classmates hold entrenched stereotypes, reflects the real stories of countless drama schools across the UK.