IMAGINE IF presents
YOU FORGOT THE MINCE
AT THE PLEASANCE
COURTYARD, EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FRINGE
FROM 7 – 28 AUGUST 2017
Following
a hugely successful 2016 tour to theatres and prisons in the North of England, You
Forgot the Mince, presented by Imagine
If and written by Francesca Joy, will run at The Pleasance Courtyard during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 7 – 28 August 2017 (excl. 21 August). This
will be followed by a London run in September and an Autumn tour of prisons and
theatres (details to be announced).
Inspired
by real life events and set in Leeds, this gritty piece of new writing tells
the story of a modern day abusive relationship: ‘Rosa lives with her grandma Lily. She’s just finished college and she can’t
wait to leave Yorkshire and all the people in it … until she meets Niko. They
fall head over heels in love, and the future’s looking bright. But their love
for each other is tested to the limit; Rosa leaves for London, Niko ends up in
prison and Lily won’t stop baking cakes. Everyone’s world is falling apart, but
no-one’s talking about it. How are they going to get their lives back on
course?’
INTERVIEW WITH FRANCESCA JOY,
WRITER/ACTRESS FOR ‘YOU FORGOT THE MINCE’ AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR/FOUNDER OF
‘IMAGINE IF’ THEATRE COMPANY
What was the inspiration for this performance?
Growing up in the working-class communities of Castleford,
West Yorkshire, which, like so much of our country, suffered so much from the
post-Industrial Revolution decline, I was exposed to the difficulties people in
my community experienced with abuse and interacting with the UK criminal and
care systems. My aim has always been to represent the voices of people
traditionally overlooked in the arts - I founded my company (Imagine If) to work with offenders,
ex-offenders, those with mental health issues, addicts and recovering addicts,
young adults in the care system and those from disadvantaged backgrounds so
that their voices may be heard, so that our audiences can know that the
struggle is real but also that there are choices to be made that can improve
the lives of the thousands of people in this country who feel side-lined or
ignored.
Is performance still a good space for the public
discussion of ideas?
I think it’s one of the most powerful, it allows
people from all walks of life to experience a different perspective or to know
that their own feelings are not unique – that there are ways to get support,
that they are not alone. It also provides a safe environment to challenge
ingrained beliefs and help people to identify their own behaviour patterns
which hopefully empowers the individual to make a difference in their own life
and that of others.
How did you become interested in making
performance?
I developed these characters whilst working at the
West Yorkshire Playhouse as a way of articulating the anger I felt seeing
people from less advantaged backgrounds being discriminated against and denied
opportunity. The Arts is enriched and
emboldened by diversification – conflict is at the heart of drama and without
facilitating a broad range of voices it will always fail to have an impact –
both socially and economically. Coming
up against so many walls, I wanted to kick the door down and open up opportunities
for those who might have felt that the arts was an unreachable goal or somehow
didn’t represent the world they identified with.
Is there any particular approach to the making of
the show?
When I was writing the play I spoke to hundreds of
people who live in the communities the characters come from as well as
interviewing people involved in working with people who identify as abused or
abusers. Imagine If regularly holds drama workshops and facilitates drama-based
projects in prisons across Yorkshire so the experiences of offenders and the
prison staff was a huge influence. In
addition, I moved into some of the communities mentioned in the play to gain
real-life experience of what the people we talk about in the play experience on
a day-to-day basis.
Gradually, through working with Mark Catley (Casualty)
who came on board as dramaturg, I distilled and concentrated the play into an
intense snapshot of these characters lives and the destructive power of their
relationships.
Following that stage, we developed the play in two
separate research and development stages in 2014/2015 before embarking on a
national tour in 2016 where we engaged with audiences who provided valuable
insight into the power of the play on their own lives. Now in 2017, we present the evolution of the
whole process – the play is constantly developing and morphing as we understand
more about the conditions and experiences of people in similar real-life
situations and the collaboration with the actors has increased the density of
the fabric of the play which allows it to speak to everyone.
Does the show fit with your usual productions?
Our mission is to create theatre that is inspiring,
entertaining and unashamedly honest for our audiences. Authenticity is
ingrained in our work – You Forgot The Mince is an excellent
example of the theatre we create. It is based
on the world around us comprising real stories from real people and has a
social conscience at its heart.
What do you hope that the audience will experience?
We saw in 2016 that it is a play that causes great
reflection in the audience – of their own lives and how their relationships are
formed, maintained and cared for. The
line between an abusive relationship and one we would consider to be perfectly
normal is so fine – when does our need for love or control of our own lives
develop into something which is harmful to our loved ones? The media tend to portray quite a binary
version of domestic abuse – man hits woman (or vice versa) – but the play sets
out to challenge that assumption and identify other behaviours which constitute
abuse and illustrate that there are far more factors at play in a relationship
that has become abusive. We seek not to
excuse the behaviour of our characters, but to explore it and help the audience
understand that they can chose to take a different path. One of the charities I spoke to during my
research, Behind Closed Doors, identifies emotional, financial and sexual abuses,
among many others, in the people they help – we hope that the play will offer
the audience an insight into how they can avoid entering the cycle of abuse in
the first place or identify the need to change their actions if they are
already in one.
What strategies did you consider towards shaping
this audience experience?
Authenticity is the key to all our productions, but
especially for You Forgot The Mince. In
reflecting real people’s lives and treating their stories with sympathy and
care we can allow the audience to fall in love with the characters before
opening up the drama of their lives in order to hold a mirror up to the
audience. Reality is key, despite its
gritty subject matter the play is actually hugely funny and tender and it is a
fully theatrical experience, White & Givan (Milk, Traverse Theatre) have
provided the Movement Direction and there is a fully composed score by Ed
Clarke (Frankenstein, NT) which brings out emotions, themes and thoughts that
text alone would not be able to deal with.
It was important to me as a writer and a Producer to have a
multi-disciplinary production in order to speak to as many people as possible.
Francesca Joy
conceived, researched and wrote You Forgot The Mince supported by
dramaturg Mark Catley (BBC). Francesca, who is also Founding
Artistic Director of Imagine If,
grew up in care from the age of 15, and she has experienced various forms of
abuse throughout her life. As a trained actor, writer and producer, Francesca
uses her first-hand experience to inform the art which Imagine If creates and she is passionate about working with those
underrepresented in the arts. She says: “You Forgot the Mince is a story about
what we do to protect those around us and how we fuck them up in the process.
It is about real people and the journeys they choose to go on in life. How we
love and how we hurt. The characters came to me long before the story did. I
was inspired by my own relationships with those close to me, those around me,
and the people I passed on the street. I am inspired by people and the ability
they have to change their own behaviour. I hope You Forgot the Mince inspires others to change too.”
You
Forgot The Mince is performed by Francesca Joy, Ursula Mohan and Prince
Plockey. It is directed by Stephen
Whitson (UK Associate Director on the West End transfer of the Broadway
hit show Hamilton and currently Associate
Director of 42nd Street at
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane). Movement is by award-winning choreographers Errol
White and Davina Givan, of White & Givan, and sound by Ed Clarke.
The
production features an amalgamation of verbatim text, original text and
physical theatre accompanied by an original score. The interactions between the
characters poignantly highlight the stark reality of control and coercion,
interlaced with humour and normality.
Imagine If
is a Leeds-based theatre company and charity, founded in 2014, which tours new
writing to theatres and prisons across the UK. Its productions are based on the
world around us comprising real stories from real people, placing those without
a voice at the forefront of each Imagine
If production. As well as theatre productions, Imagine If runs a range of drama-based workshops across the UK with
offenders, ex-offenders, those with mental health issues, recovering addicts,
young adults in the care system and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. You
Forgot the Mince had an extensive research phase including drama
workshops in HMP Leeds and with ex-offenders within the community.
You Forgot
the Mince
runs from 7
– 28 August (exc. 21 August) at the Pleasance Courtyard. Tickets, priced £6.50 - £10 (‘2 for 1’ tickets
on 7 and 8 August), are available from the Pleasance Box Office: https://www.pleasance.co.uk/event/you-forgot-mince and Telephone Booking:
0131 556 6550. Imagine
If are supporting young adults in care with four free tickets available for every
show
Website: www.imagineiftheatre.co.uk
Show trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hh8yL6xQdI&t=1s
LISTINGS
Show: You
Forgot the Mince
Theatre company: Imagine If
Dates: 7 –
28 August (no performance 21 August)
Times: 1.00pm
Venue: Pleasance
Courtyard (Venue 33), 60 Pleasance, Edinburgh EH8 9TJ
Duration:
60 minutes (no interval)
Suitability:
ages 12+. Performance
contains brief depictions of violence
Prices (standard/concession): £7.50/£6.50: Mon 14, Tues
15, Tues 22, Mon 28; £9.00/£8.00: Weds 9, Thu 10, Weds 16, Thu 17, Weds 23,
Thu 24; £10.00/£9.00: Mon 7,
Tues 8, Fri 11, Sat 12, Sun 13, Fri 18, Sat 19, Sun 20, Fri 25, Sat 26, Sun 27
(Concessions available - valid for anyone under 18 years
old, registered students, registered unemployed, registered disabled, or over
60 years old. ID required).
7
and 8 August: ‘2 for 1’
ticket offer available
Imagine If are supporting young adults in care with
four free tickets available for every show
PRESS ENQUIRIES:
To book
review tickets for this show please
email the Pleasance Press Office press@pleasance.co.uk and cc: Alison@AduguidPR.com
NOTES TO EDITORS
BIOGS FOR CREATIVES/CAST
·
FRANCESCA
JOY began writing and touring her own stand-up comedy
sets in 2012, which led to a real passion for all styles of writing and she
began script writing the following year in 2013, after securing a place on the
West Yorkshire Playhouse's writing course. Theatre writing credits include: You Forgot the Mince (UK Tour), Displaced (Carriageworks Theatre), Mairzy Doats (Headingley Literary
Festival), Doing Time (West Yorkshire
Playhouse). Film writing credits include:
Bunny Girls (Black Hat Pictures), Noughts
and Crosses (Chocolate Bear UK). Francesca has been professionally acting
for television and stage since she graduated from her theatre training in
2012. Theatre credits include: The Musicians (National Theatre), In or Out (Seven Arts), Rastaroots (Contact Theatre) Dick Whittington (UK Tour), My Mother Said I Never Should
(Carriageworks). Screen credits include: Falling
(Mojofilm), Emmerdale (ITV), Trapped Magic (Cloud Castle
Entertainment), Bunny Girls (Black
Hat Pictures), Ex-Men: The Care Home Wars
(Alec Birkbeck Films), Lovebite (West
End Films).
·
STEPHEN
WHITSON trained at The Arts Educational Schools, London.
Theatre Directing credits include: The
Last Five Years and Putting It
Together (The Lyric, Belfast), Elegies
for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens (Criterion, London), Little Women (Old Rep, Birmingham), Return To The Forbidden Planet (SWG3,
Glasgow), Dubailand (Finborough), If Only… (Bread & Roses, London), Circuit Breaker (Timewave Festival), and
The Wizard of Oz (St. Ives Theatre).
Upcoming work: Benighted (Old Red
Lion), 42nd Street (Associate
Director - Theatre Royal, Drury Lane) and Hamilton
(UK Associate Director - Victoria Palace Theatre).
·
URSULA
MOHAN began her acting career at Wimbledon Theatre before
winning a scholarship to train at The Webber Douglas. She has just played Flo in
a one-woman show called Florence Smith -
Now & Then which will tour in 2018 and last year she played Lear as a
Queen in a revival of the 2014 critically acclaimed production of Shakespeare’s King Lear (Tristan Bates
and Union Theatre.) Other recent work includes: Hecuba in The Women of Troy and Mother in Blood
Wedding, (Scoop); Sarah in Horniman’s
Choice and Mrs Midget in Outward
Bound (Finborough); Mrs Goulding in The
Veil (National) Mrs Tottendale in The
Drowsy Chaperone (Gatehouse); Mrs Fox in Dads Army (UK Tour); and Fairy Godmother in Cinderella (Hertford). She has appeared in Doctors (BBC).
·
PRINCE
PLOCKEY trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. His
theatre credits include the European tour of The Life and Death of Martin Luther King for TNT Theatre directed by
Paul Stebbings (MBE). For Lazarus Theatre Company he played Giovanni in Tis Pity She’s A Whore, Tamburlaine in Tamburlaine the Great, Coriolanus in Coriolanus, Agamemnon in Troilus & Cressida, directed by
Ricky Dukes and Gloucester/King Richard in Richard
III directed by Gavin Harrington-Odedra.
ABOUT THE PLEASANCE EDINBURGH
·
Pleasance
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theatres facing onto a deserted courtyard-come-car-park at an unfashionable
eastern end of Edinburgh’s Old Town. Thirtythree seasons later the Pleasance
has become the largest and most highly respected venues at the Edinburgh
Festival Fringe, with an international profile and a network of alumni that
reads like a Who’s Who of contemporary comedy, drama and entertainment. @ThePleasance #ThePleasance Facebook.com/ThePleasance
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