In 2013, the Birmingham local council would receive a damaging letter claiming a plot was underway to run local schools under strict Islamic doctrine. This letter outlined a plan known to many as ‘Operation Trojan Horse’, its ultimate aim of whomever sent it, to implicate various figures. This very letter would then be passed onto the Home Office and Department of Education and would subsequently be leaked to mainstream press. This very letter would start off a chain reaction of detrimental events – insensitive headline articles, emergency OFSTED inspections of 21 schools in Birmingham and Michael Gove openly criticising the Home Office on tackling ‘non violent extremism’. Tahir Alam, the former chairman of the Park View Educational Trust who ran three schools in Birmingham and fourteen other teachers would receive lifetime bans that would later be dismissed. This scandal was damaging to the local community of Birmingham, and sadly six years on, we’re living in a world whereby Islamaphobia is on the rise, scandals such as this fuelling a dangerous climate of hate. Tapping into the voices affected by the repercusions of this national scandal, writers of LUNG Theatre Company Helen Monks and Matt Woodhead talk about their latest show ‘Trojan Horse’ – a show placing verbatim at its core.