‘We were just hustling to be there’: beatboxer Conrad Murray on bringing working-class voices to theatre

Conrad Murray’s life in the arts has been a battle. There have been plenty of high points, both in his individual theatrical pursuits and as artistic director of Battersea Arts Centre’s brilliant Beatbox Academy. A trilogy of Murray’s plays, all of which merge hip-hop, theatre and working-class stories, was published last year. He’s started composing rap, hip-hop and beatbox-infused scores for a number of increasingly high-profile musicals, including Michael Rosen’s Unexpected Twist. And perhaps most notably, in 2018, Murray found success with Beatbox Academy’s first professional production, Frankenstein. The show garnered five-star reviews, toured the country and was eventually transformed into a powerful documentary on BBC iPlayer.

There’s no doubt Murray has made it. But he’s still fighting. Fighting to tell stories that reflect the people he knows; in an in the summer, Murray wrote: “Working-class voices in theatre are so unrepresented … there is no