Baked beans, cups of tea, and colonialism: the six-hour show about becoming British

Lora Krasteva's durational piece was inspired by applying for citizenship. Now, she reflects on what it means to be a migrant within the theatre industry

Lora Krasteva in Becoming British at Centrala, Birmingham. Photo: Kevin Blake

By Lora Krasteva

In 2020, after living in Britain for a decade, I applied to be naturalised. 18 months later, I was officially a British citizen. That same year, I also decided to adopt the label of “artist”. After years of part-time work as a producer, I was ready to explore my own creative voice and, move away from supporting other people's projects.

These two labels, “British” and “artist”, collide in my newest (yet perhaps oldest) work: a six-hour durational performance installation called Becoming British. These labels are, of course, very different, and have very different levels of jeopardy; different levels of meaning and of importance. However, they are in my case, intrinsically linked.

The promotional copy of Becoming British goes like this: How much do we change when we move to a new country? What do we embrace, resist, leave behind? Can we really, one day, become "truly" British? And what does that even mean?

You may believe that artists choose the art that they make. I am torn: I sometimes think that art chooses the artist through which to exist. So, I’m not quite sure if I chose to make Becoming British the same way I am not sure that I ever actively chose to “become British” myself. Was it a logistical decision? Was it something I was due, living in this country for over 10 years, paying my taxes and being a “lawful citizen”? Am I even really British now? A lot of the answers to these questions are “no”. And yet, “yes” is also true.

Similarly, am I an artist? I did not train to be one. I do many other things that would not be classified under the artist category. But I love the term because it is lofty enough to encompass who I am: someone who lives in the world and feels compelled to examine it with others and in conversation, providing both alternatives and a mirror to what does not work in our societies.

‘The Flag Task’ in Becoming British at Centrala. Photo: Kevin Blake

Becoming British, for instance, interrogates national identity and belonging as well as the pressures of the hostile environment. I created the piece based on my lived experience of acquiring British citizenship as well as interviews within the community. The current iteration of the work is a durational performance installation, where five first generation migrant performers undertake six tasks for a total of six hours; audiences are invited to come and go as they please. After the live element is over, the set is left behind and becomes an installation for (new) audiences to discover in their own time, in the aftermath of “becoming”.

Becoming British was first shown as a work in progress at the Migration Matters Festival in Sheffield in June 2024, was recently performed again at Centrala in Birmingham, and will be staged at ROAR in Rotherham next week. Each time the piece travels, it is performed by a different group of migrant artists, representing the demographics of the place where it’s performed. As audiences come in, watch, sit, or drift around the space, each performer conducts one task for an hour, before moving on to the next. All the tasks are multi-layered metaphors for different aspects of “becoming” – from the pressures to conform to a new society to the costs of visas – as well as for the notion of “Britishness” – from the mundane daily rituals to the history of colonialism and violence it encompasses.

So, to describe Task #1: At the evidence table, the performer reads into a microphone facts, figures, articles, and books related to topics such as the bureaucracy behind getting visas or a British passport, or about British society and history. The performer curates each hour on the go, also adding in real-life accounts from first generation migrants who I interviewed. This “mixing” gives the auditory texture of the whole performance, and means each hour is different: a different voice, a different accent, a different topical focus.

In Task #2 – The Tea Task – the performer makes cups of tea to the audience’s liking, asking “How do you take you tea?” But those cups are never given away for the audience to consume; they are instead displayed on a pallet, assembled on a scale of strength against sugar levels. As the performance progresses, so does the number of cups of teas. In The Beans Task, performers count baked beans from a massive tin using a tiny spoon, depositing them on a long wooden plank and recording their counting. In The Flag Task, the performer attempts to recreate the Union Jack using paint and their fingertips only – while blindfolded. After that, the performer moves to The Earth Task: they need to bury themselves in a mound of earth and wait to see if they will grow new roots.

A migrant performer in Becoming British. Photo: Kevin Blake

Once each task is performed by five performers, they must all cling-film themselves into a tight plastic cocoon – a process soundtracked by a reading of the ‘welcome letter’ sent by the Home Secretary to those receiving British Citizenship. And as we approach the end of the sixth hour, silence descends. Slowly, each actor frees themselves from the constraints of the cling film, and walks away.

The audience is left to wonder: has any transformation occurred?

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This show is a result of a lifetime living as an immigrant: I was born in Bulgaria but never really lived there. I grew up in North Africa and in Spain, moved to France then Argentina and decided to come to London in 2011 to finish my studies. Throughout my life I have been subject to checks and border controls, then an incredible amount of bureaucracy to secure passage, residency or the ability to study and work. My experience, however, is still a very privileged one: I am a white woman from Europe (even if Bulgaria was until recently, and some may argue is still, considered a second-tier European country).

Since I came to the UK in 2011, the narrative around immigration in this country has only intensified. Back then, the problem was Bulgarians and Romanians “coming over here to take our jobs”. I was surprised at first. Usually, people don’t even know where Bulgaria is on the map. Since then, the “problem” has become people coming on boats. Or refugees. Or illegal immigrants. Or Albanian men. Or Asylum seekers… you name it. There is always someone else responsible for all the woes of this country.

There was also another decisive shift after the 2016 Brexit vote: anti-immigrant rhetoric and racist and xenophobic sentiments were given more legitimacy, permeating even more into the mainstream. It felt like people were emboldened to express those sentiments “in the open” (with the clearest example being the riots of August 2024). This intensification was perhaps why 2020 was also the year I named myself an activist. I wanted to highlight how what I do is indeed “active” – in opposition to the rhetorical, and the very real, violence perpetuated against immigrants in this country.