If you missed it on stage, there’s another chance to see Rupture, Open Clasp Theatre Company’s powerful drama created with women prisoners, when the film version is screened this month in Durham.
It tells the story of Destiny, played by Narisha Lawson, who we meet on the prison roof one bonfire night.
As the fireworks go off below, she shares fragments of her troubled life story, of her broken childhood, her imperfect relationships and the children she has lost into care.
The play, praised by critics, was co-created with mothers in HMP Low Newton who shared their experiences of trying to prevent their children being taken into care, not always successfully.
One of the women said the Open Clasp sessions inspired her “to carry on through the suicidal times and work towards a positive future with my children and family”. Another declared it had “put the fight back into me”.
Dr Kate O’Brien, of Durham University, much of whose academic work has concerned women in prison, has said: “Our research has highlighted the devastating impacts that a prison sentence can have on mothers who are separated from their children.”
She has called the play “a vehicle that will help us achieve change”.
Catrina McHugh, founder of Newcastle-based Open Clasp and writer of Rupture, says: “Mothers incarcerated need information, support, counselling and hope, and Rupture calls for empathy.”
Rupture is to be screened on Saturday, October 18, at 11am, at Gala Durham as part of the WOW (Women of the World) Festival, and then again at 5.30pm, followed by a panel discussion, at Durham University Business School as part of the annual Festival of Social Science run by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Tickets for both screenings are free. Details from the Open Clasp Theatre Company website.