The Concrete Garden

Programme Outline

This 25-minute film, directed by Alrick Riley, depicts 9-year-old Marcia arriving in London from the Caribbean and having to cope with a new family situation and a different culture. The story is told almost without words.

At her new home...

Marcia gets reacquainted with her parents and gets to know her younger brother. Both are almost strangers to Marcia, since she has been living with her grandmother for most of her life. At first, Marcia and her brother find it difficult to get on. There is much sibling rivalry. He deliberately breaks the record given to her as a parting gift by friends from home. The film ends with the two holding hands on the way home from their disastrous attempt at getting into a nightclub. The image symbolises them starting afresh in getting to know one another.

At school...

Marcia has to cope with bullies. As the only black person in her class, she is singled out and victimised by her 'classmates'. She is physically abused. In one incident on her very first day at school she suffers a nosebleed.

On television...

In addition to having to endure racist abuse from those around them, Marcia and her family encounter more racism in the infamous television programme The Black and White Minstrel Show, which is switched off in disgust by her parents.

Music...

The music of her island provides a link with Marcia's former home. But in a new country the music is not the comfort that it once was. Two incidents - the breaking of the record brought from home, and the visit to an adult nightclub for fellow islanders - highlight her estrangement.

Letter-writing...

Running through the story is Marcia's own narrative - sometimes contrived - updating her grandmother on her new life in England. Most poignantly, in her account of her first day at school, she describes herself settling in and making lots of friends.