A ferocious talent

Of all our members, Foster is the only one who lives with his kids and their mum; of all our members Foster is the only one up on a charge of domestic violence. He's on remand in Belmarsh, sitting out the summer, brooding on a crazy morning in Colchester back in April.

Foster has form here. He too was brought up by cohabiting (indeed married) parents, he too saw his father hit his mum. He first went to Feltham at 15; from then till 24—three years ago—he was wild. We met him in Wormwood Scrubs and cast him as a righteous but angry father in an August Wilson play; he played his dad with grace and passion. Since he finished that stretch he has—we believe—stayed straight: some building jobs; long sad periods on dope and the dole; occasional plays and youth projects with us. The day after the madness, he was due for a job interview we'd set up with a teaching agency. But the anger remains. It bubbles up in long dark sullen moods and explosions of rage that speak of some grand foundational injustice; something so terrible, real or imagined, in himself or others, that the only response he can find is violence.

Sitting in his orange bib in the visits room, Foster tells us what happened. It's sub judice but the details include two young women swigging vodka, pushing their prams through Colchester on a hot Tuesday morning; Foster shopping for a shirt and tie for his interview, getting furious with the girls; back home, an argument and a tussle, then a call to the police and a chase through the fields; a helicopter, CS gas, the works.



He was our first member, star of our first play, the one I know best and—in terms of time spent, emotion expended—the one I love the most. He is a great actor, and would have been a great barrister; he has a brilliant mind, natural authority, all talents. He has caused a lot of trouble, but will yet make all good and be the leader, husband and father he was designed to be.

One evening at our members' dinner we thrash out the pros and cons of monogamy: true to their experience, none but Foster thinks it can work. He speaks of the covenant, the rich deep love you get when you commit to someone, forsaking all others; the rightness and satisfaction of fidelity. His woman wants him back and his children know to miss him, now he's behind the door; and that is something, that is a lot.