Alex Wheatle Day
Launched 4 May 2026
Welcome to the Alex Wheatle Day page.
On Monday 4th May 2026, Theatre Peckham and Words of Colour launched Alex Wheatle Day to celebrate the legacy of the multi-award-winning author who died on 16th March 2025.
Listen to this introduction
Read by Joy Francis
Alex Wheatle, aka the ‘Brixton Bard’, wrote over 21 books, including a novella, and won the London Arts Board Writers Prize 2000 for Brixton Rock, the Guardian’s Children’s Fiction Award in 2016 and the Renaissance Quiz Writers’ Choice Award for Crongton Knights. The BBC’s adaptation of Crongton won the RTS Award for Best Children’s Programme 2026 and won the Children’s: Script BAFTA Television Award 2026.
A regular visitor to schools and prisons across the country on literacy programmes, Alex believed that “creativity is a necessary tool to tackle the modern world for young people”. He was also an avid supporter of Futureland and was planning to be part of the programme.
At the launch of Alex Wheatle Day, there was a staged adaptation of Alex’s YA novella WITNESS written by Theatre Peckham’s CEO and Artistic Director Suzanne McLean and writer David Fielding.
The sold out run of WITNESS the play, which explores courage, loyalty and the price of telling the truth against a backdrop of knife crime, was watched by 60 students from Harris Academy Peckham, one of Futureland’s inaugural schools.
On this page you’ll find video clips from Witness and the post-show discussion, along with vox pops from the audience.
On stage at Theatre Peckham
WITNESS in pictures
Founding partners
Funder
Participating Schools
