MEETING Ground Theatre Company and Nottingham Lakeside Arts will tour Inside Out of Mind, an insightful and darkly comic play that powerfully captures the multiple realities of life on a dementia ward, to six venues across England from Wednesday 18 February to Friday 27 March 2015.
The tour follows the success of a limited run in 2013 that resulted in an Arts Council England Strategic Touring Grant.
Inside Out of Mind is based on and inspired by the extensive observational research material compiled from an academic study into healthcare wards of NHS Hospitals treating patients with dementia by social scientists at the University of Nottingham’s Institute of Mental Health.
Welcome to the ward with no name… A theatre of magical, medical realism. A fusion of love stories, crisscrossing time and space, where walls turn into forests; thunder to gunfire; books to birds; with untold stories kept under their wings. Nurses come, nurses go – carrying, folding, and keeping the continuum of person-centred care and its fragile emotional legacy in tact.
Inside Out of Mind is a multi-layered illustration of life within dementia care from the perspective of patients, carers and visitors. It offers glimpses into a mysterious world, touching on some of the profound themes associated with dementia including time, identity, loss, relationships, power and death.
Writer and director, Tanya Myers (co-artistic director of Meeting Ground Theatre Company) not only echoes the research observations in the play’s characters and scenes but she also uses the medium of theatre, with all its scope for illusion and magic, to engage the audience’s emotions, fostering empathy for staff and patients, while giving pause for reflection and intuitive listening.
Adds the spokesperson: “Inside Out of Mind is an inspiring and collaborative theatre project that took three years to evolve, bringing together Meeting Ground Theatre Company, Nottingham Lakeside Arts, The University of Nottingham and the NHS to tackle the challenge of dementia care.
“A number of local health care trusts see Inside Out of Mind as an innovative and engaging way to raise the skills and awareness of their basic-grade staff, health care assistants, who figure importantly in the play. At each venue on tour, there will be dedicated NHS staff performances and post show discussions, with tickets being sponsored by the trusts.”
Inside Out of Mind has been designed by Nettie Scriven; with lighting design by Richard Statham, digital media design by Barret Hodgson and original music and sound design by David Wilson.
Meeting Ground Theatre Company is collaborating with award-winning film makers, we are caravan – to create a filmed version of the play. The plan is to distribute the film to cinemas, care homes and hospitals across the UK to ensure as wide a viewing as possible of this remarkable piece of work.
For more information on the 2015 tour of Inside Out of Mind and Meeting Ground Theatre Company, go to http://www.meetinggroundtheatrecompany.co.uk/
For more information on Nottingham Lakeside Arts, go to http://www.lakesidearts.org.uk/
Director, Tanya Myers, introduces ‘Inside Out of Mind': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY4WTdqOR6U
Inside Out of Mind – raising awareness of dementia care through theatre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kbir0cCQPYM
Twitter – @meetinggroundUK / @InsideOutof / @LakesideArts – #InOutMind
Media Contact:
For further information, images or to arrange interviews please contact: Paddy Cuthbert | Littlehouse Media | E: paddy@littlehousemedia.uk.com / M: 07913 951717.
NATIONAL TOUR 2015 LISTINGS INFORMATION:
Venue: DERBY THEATRE, 15 Theatre Walk, St Peter’s Quarter, Derby, DE1 2NF
Dates: Wednesday 18 – Saturday 21 February 2015
Times: Wed 18 – 19:30 with post-show discussion
Thurs 19 and Fri 20 – 10:00 and 14:30 NHS PERFORMANCES with post-show discussions
Sat 21 – 19.30
Ticket Prices: £11 – £25
Box Office: 01322 593939 / derbytheatre.co.uk
Venue: NOTTINGHAM LAKESIDE ARTS, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD
Dates: Tuesday 24 – Saturday 28 February 2015
Times: Tue 24 – 19.30
Thu 26 and Fri 27 – 10:00 and 14:30 NHS PERFORMANCES with post-show discussions
Sat 28 – 19:30
Ticket Prices: £11 -£15
Box Office: 0115 846 7777 / lakesidearts.org.uk
Venue: GULBENKIAN, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NB
Dates: Tuesday 3 – Friday 6 March 2015
Times Tue 3 – 1930 with post-show discussion
Wed 4 – 10:00 and 14:30 NHS PERFORMANCES with post-show discussions
Thu 5 – 14:30 NHS PERFORMANCE with post-show discussion
Fri 6 – 14:30 NHS PERFORMANCE with post show-discussions and 19:30
Ticket Prices: £7 – £12
Box Office: 01227 769075 / thegulbenkian.co.uk
Venue: WARWICK ARTS CENTRE, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL
Dates: Tuesday 10 – Friday 13 March 2015
Times: Tue 10 – 19:45 with post-show discussion
Wed 11 – 10:00 & 14:30 NHS PERFORMANCES with post-show discussions
Thu 12 – 14:30 NHS PERFORMANCE with post-show discussion and 19:45
Fri 13 – 10:00 NHS PERFORMANCE with post-show discussion
Ticket Prices: £12.50 – £19
Box Office: 024 7652 4524 / warwickartscentre.co.uk
Venue: EXETER NORTHCOTT THEATRE, Stocker Road, Exeter, EX4 4QB
Dates: Tuesday 17 – Friday 20 March 2015
Times: Tue 17 – 19:30 with post-show discussion
Wed 18 – 10:00 and 14:30 NHS PERFORMANCES with post-show discussions
Thu 19 – 14:30 NHS PERFORMANCE with post-show discussion
Fri 20 – 14:30 NHS PERFORMANCE with post-show discussion and 19:30
Ticket Prices: £15
Box Office: 01392 493493 / exeternorthcott.co.uk / boxoffice@exeternorthcott.co.uk
Venue: CURVE, 60 Rutland Street, Leicester LE1 1SB
Dates: Tuesday 24 – Friday 27 March 2015
Times: Tue 24 – 19:45 with post-show discussion
Wed 25 – 10:00 & 14:30 NHS PERFORMANCES with post-show discussions
Thu 26 14:30 NHS PERFORMANCE with post-show discussion and 19:45
Fri 27 – 10:00 NHS PERFORMANCE with post-show discussion
Ticket Prices: £12 – £16
Box Office: 0116 242 3595 / curveonline.co.uk
Notes to Editors:
Inside Out of Mind – a brief history
In 2011, Professor Justine Schneider and colleagues at the Institute of Mental Health, University of Nottingham, published the results of a study of dementia wards, based on 600,000 words of observational field notes. From this material, Tanya Myers was commissioned to write a play with the aim of impacting positively on the care of people with dementia whilst highlighting the skills and compassion of the caring professionals working with dementia patients.
Following the success of an initial limited run of 15 performances at Nottingham Lakeside Arts, University of Nottingham, in June 2013, Inside Out of Mind and associated training activity will tour nationally to Derby Theatre; Nottingham Lakeside Arts; Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury; Warwick Arts Centre; Northcott Theatre, Exeter; Curve, Leicester in February and March 2015.
The first run of Inside Out of Mind took place at Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham, from June 14-29, 2013. Many of the tickets were financed by local Health Trusts, who saw the play as an innovative and engaging way to raise the skills and awareness of their basic-grade staff, health care assistants, who figure importantly in the play. Care home staff and home care workers were also encouraged to attend.
—
Says the Alzheimer’s Society:
- By 2015 there will be 850,000 people with dementia in the UK.
- 225,000 people develop dementia every year, that’s roughly one person every three minutes.
- There will be one million people with dementia in the UK by 2025.
- There are 670,000 carers of people with dementia in the UK.
- The financial cost of dementia to the UK is £26.3 billion per annum.
- Two-thirds of the cost of dementia is picked up by people with dementia and their families. Family carers of people with dementia save the UK £11 billion a year.
- Two-thirds of people with dementia live in the community while one third live in a care home.
- 80 per cent of people living in care homes have a form of dementia or severe memory problems.
- 60,000 deaths a year are directly attributable to dementia. Delaying the onset of dementia by five years would reduce deaths directly attributable to dementia by 30,000 a year.
- No two people with dementia are the same. Services need to reflect the needs of individuals.
- There are 40,000 younger people with dementia in the UK.
- There are 25,000 people with dementia from black and minority ethnic groups in the UK.
- Two thirds of people with dementia are women.
- The proportion of people with dementia doubles for every five-year age group.
- One in six people aged 80 and over have dementia.
- Only 44 per cent of people with dementia in England, Wales and Northern Ireland receive a diagnosis.
MEDIA RELEASE issued by Littlehouse Media. You too can post your story ideas for journalists (aka Press or media releases), on allmediascotland.com. Email info@allmediascotland.com for more information.
Check out twitter.com/nonstopstories for your very own media releases feed…
Check out too twitter.com/allTheatrePR.
To catch up on all the media releases recently posted on to allmediascotland.com, you need only click the link icon that you see towards the bottom right of our two media release ‘gateway boxes’.
It’s this icon, here. It’s your route straight into the rich archive.
—
Littlehouse Media contact details…
Contact: Paddy Cuthbert
Email: paddy@littlehousemedia.uk.com
Website: http://www.meetinggroundtheatrecompany.co.uk/inside-out-of-mind-2015
