Advertisement
CHRISTMAS SPECIAL: Just £9.99 for the next 8 weeks
SUBSCRIBE
Social Justice

Orwell Prize-winner Darren McGarvey’s new series shows the impact of poverty

The writer, activist and rapper follows the success of ‘Poverty Safari’ with a BBC documentary series in which he travels around Scotland highlighting the causes and effects of poverty

Darren McGarvey Big List 1374

The activist and author known to many as the rapper Loki delves deeper into some of the issues examined in his Orwell prize-winning book Poverty Safari in a new six-part series for the BBC. McGarvey embarks on a journey around Scotland to confront and expose hidden problems of economic inequality and the futile prospect of social mobility. On BBC Scotland and BBC iPlayer from September 3

Darren McGarvey is the Orwell-prize winning writer and activist known to many as rapper Loki. His book ‘Poverty Safari: Understanding The Anger of Britain’s Underclass’, published in 2017, showed the very real impact growing up poor can have on families.

Anthony Adonis, Labour peer and chair of the judging panel said of McGarvey’s Poverty Safari: “George Orwell would have loved this book. It echoes ‘Down and Out in London and Paris’ and ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’.

“It is heart-rending in its life story and its account of family breakdown and poverty. But by the end there is not a scintilla of self-pity and a huge amount of optimism. It made me see the country and its social condition in a new light.”

Now McGarvey has returned to the issues examined in Poverty Safari for a new six-part television series.

In Darren McGarvey’s Scotland, he travels across his homeland to highlight what he sees as the rampant rise of poverty. McGarvey meets people living in poverty, assesses the physical and mental health impacts of their situations, and confronts the problems associated with economic inequality and the futile prospect of social mobility.

Television, unfortunately, had been a large part of the problem

It is hard hitting stuff. But McGarvey is a host who knows these worlds and issues well. We asked McGarvey why this series felt like the next natural step in the wake of his Orwell Prize win, and what he wanted to achieve with his alternative travelogue around Scotland, which begins in Dundee – where he reflects on his own personal history of poverty and addiction.

Advertisement
Advertisement

“The opportunity to do the series came directly out of the success of the book,” he told us.

“It led to lots of opportunities and offers to do all kinds of things. I immediately sensed the possibility that was there to make the kind of programmes I had always wanted to see. Something that humanised people in poverty a little more and spent as much time showing the socioeconomic context of their behaviour as it did the behaviour itself.”

The series, according to McGarvey, will go some way towards rebalancing representations of the lives of people living in poverty on television.

“Television, unfortunately, had been a large part of the problem. Social mobility figures reveal regularly that media is dominated by those from middle and upper class backgrounds. This leads to lopsided programming that is filled with assumptions a lot of the time,” he says.

“Look at Jeremy Kyle. A guy who made millions for ITV and himself, holding the poor to account for their mistakes. But where was he when it was time to take some responsibility for the circumstances that led to one of the show’s contributors taking his own life? One rule for one, one rule for another.”

I’m beginning to get a sense of how affluence can insulate you from the plight of others

So how does he stay in touch with the realities of living in poverty, the further removed from this world he himself moves?

“Good question. My [Edinburgh] Fringe show and next book deal with this head-on,” he says. “I’m beginning to get a sense of how affluence can insulate you from the plight of others. It becomes easy to transition from the role of an activist, fighting for change, to one that advocates the status-quo.

“I try to observe these impulses in myself and then write about them. The paradox of social mobility is that the more people become middle class, the less politicians need to appeal to working and lower class interests to get elected. Affluence for some can create unforeseen consequences for those locked out of the prosperity.”

Darren McGarvey’s Scotland is available on BBC iPlayer from September 3

Image: Steven Reynolds

Advertisement

Buy a Big Issue Vendor Support Kit

This Christmas, give a Big Issue vendor the tools to keep themselves warm, dry, fed, earning and progressing.

Recommended for you

View all
Help stop care leavers from falling into homelessness, Labour told: 'People are suffering'
Care leavers

Help stop care leavers from falling into homelessness, Labour told: 'People are suffering'

Danny Dyer says people looked at him 'like scum' while he sold the Big Issue in London
Andre Rostant and Danny Dyer selling The Big Issue on Charing Cross Road
Our vendors

Danny Dyer says people looked at him 'like scum' while he sold the Big Issue in London

'Vulnerable' young mental health patients discharged into caravans, B&Bs and onto the street
Mental health
Mental health

'Vulnerable' young mental health patients discharged into caravans, B&Bs and onto the street

'It's changed our life': These modern slavery survivors are finding hope at Christmas through music
modern slavery choir
Modern slavery

'It's changed our life': These modern slavery survivors are finding hope at Christmas through music

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know
4.

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know