Art with Heart

REVIEW: Declaration (The Lowry, Salford)

kristobel
Declaration by Art With Heart ~ Developed With The Lowry ~ © Sam Ryley
Declaration by Art With Heart ~ Developed With The Lowry ~
© Sam Ryley

 

upstaged rating: 

Back in the late eighties, I remember my mum taking my brother to the GP because he was so hard to manage – highly intelligent, bursting with questions and the ability to stop a whole shopping centre with his tantrums. The GP’s advice was cut the sugar and watch out for those E numbers, and my mum and my brother were sent on their way.

Created by Rachel Moorhouse and Sarah Emmott, Declaration is a bold and insightful new play by award-winning arts adventurers and theatre-makers, Art With Heart, exploring Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Using autobiographical material, animated storytelling, humour and audience interaction, Sarah Emmott presents her experience of living with ADHD. Chatting with the audience prior to the show, Sarah breaks down any barriers – there is no sense of us and them – and the audience is encouraged to join in at various points during the 70 minute running time.

Staged in the round, Sarah’s effervescent presence fills the performance space; animated but vulnerable; brave and funny. Describing her mind whizzing ‘like a water wheel’, there’s a refreshing sense of spontaneity, as she guides us through her experience of growing up and trying to fit in, coming to terms with a diagnosis and a ‘label’ and trying to find some sense through all of the noise and opinions around medication.

A mish-mash of ‘things’ are pegged to a washing line above our heads – bright childlike artwork, cheerleading pom-poms and dolls amongst other items. There’s a wooden trunk, containing necessary props, which Sarah wheels around and film projection by People Staring which shows candid interviews with Sarah’s mother, her partner and medical professionals.

Sarah’s ability to interact with her audience and the frequency with which she does so really makes Declaration quite extraordinary. Directing questions to members of the audience, she demonstrates her thirst for knowledge and her need to feel the same as everybody else. She joins a conversation with a parent called Val and asks her about her parenting experience and coping strategies and encourages the audience to ring bells in a clever demonstration of how overwhelmed she feels sometimes.

Declaration is an intelligent, entertaining and thoughtful piece of theatre which is sure to prompt discussion around mental health and the complex issues faced by those adults living with a condition like ADHD. Brilliantly executed and refreshing, Declaration challenges stigma and raises awareness, paving the way for further discussion and understanding around mental health.

-Kristy Stott

To find out more about Art With Heart‘s brilliant work, click here to visit their website.

REVIEW – Secret Diaries (The Lowry)

kristobel
secret-diaries
Date: 02 April 2015
Upstaged Rating: 

Secret Diaries, presented by Art with Heart, pays homage to our teenage years, the awkward time when you realise that life isn’t going to be as straight forward as you originally thought that it would be. When a thirty something year old Hayley returns home and starts to look through her old belongings, it doesn’t take much more than the smell of an old school polo shirt and  the familiar sound of her cassette player to transport her, and us, back to the 80’s.

As Hayley reminisces over her teenage experiences, laughs, loves and losses – she reads excerpts from her diary which are then animated and brought to life by the cast of three. Hayley is played well by Sarah Emmott, managing to portray the ups and downs of teenage angst vividly, as we follow her coming of age but also, more poignantly, her coming out as a gay woman.

Hayley is flanked by her best friend Deb (Catherine Pugh), a mouthy teen with a wet perm. The two friends work well together on stage, writer Sarah Evans has created two well layered characters, that we can laugh at and sympathise with all at once. Hayley’s father also seems to struggle to find his feet in an ever-changing world, played by Michael Forrest, we can empathise with his sentiment although his performance does feel awkward at times. Some of the scenes between Hayley and her father, particularly towards the end of the play did seem to lose some momentum.

Designer Lynsey Akehurst‘s stage design and soundtrack was a technical highlight and the star of the show for me. The flashbacks from the present to Hayley’s teenage years could have posed quite a challenge but Akehurst’s ingenious set design, 80’s soundtrack and speedy costume changes made light work of two decades. And Rachel Moorhouse‘s fluid direction ensured that the stage was swiftly changed to suggest a classroom, a teenage bedroom and a trusty old park bench with ease. Sound bites from a news reel signifying the Iron Curtain falling and snippets from the Band Aid II single all succeeded in suggesting the passage of time.

Secret Diaries is worth checking out for reminiscence purposes alone, packed full of guilty pleasures from the eighties and nineties, Sweater Shop jumpers and Smash Hits posters, that will make you smile and reminisce about your own experiences.

-Kristy Stott