Script Club is a project which sees writers going back into the communities in which they grew up to write a new play with, and for, that local community. Natalie Mitchell, writer for Eastenders, is from Medway and has written a new play, Thrush, which focuses on a young girl, Ashley, growing up in Medway. The play explores mental health, sex and relationships, as we see Ashley struggle to not let her mental health issues stand in the way of her relationship with her new boyfriend, Ollie. We started the project with an idea of what the script might be, but knew that to write something truthful and relevant, and to engage new audiences, we had to ask the experts: cue 110 young people from Medway! Towards the end of last year, Script Club ran a series of free workshops and taster session in youth centres, at the Brook Theatre, LV21 and with already existing youth theatres in Medway.
Over the course of these workshops, we met a wide range of young people from very different backgrounds, all of whom have been incredibly open and generous; we’ve spoken about sex, about sex education, about relationships, about the best and worst parts of growing up in Medway, about school, about the different social tribes in school, about friends, and family, and home, we’ve created short scenes, written monologues, drawn safe spaces, thought about collections (how and why we collect things), created characters- the conversations have not stopped flowing, that is, until we start talking about mental health. At that point, everything goes a bit quiet. It’s clear that the young people that we’re working with aren’t used to speaking openly amount mental illness, they feel uncomfortable and quickly move onto safer ground. At this point, we realised that it was really important to meet with psychologists and councillors from Medway who work directly with young people experiencing mental health issues. Experts from Mid-Kent College and CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) in Medway explained to us how a young person with a mental illness might be referred to see a specialist, the obstacles that they might face in so doing, the way in which a mental health illness might present itself, and how mental health issues are understood (or not) in the wider society.
Over the past few years there has been a sharp increase in young people identifying themselves as experiencing a mental health issue, yet there is still a lot of stigma attached to mental health- one expert working in Medway told us the most common question asked by young people when disclosing for the first time that they think they might have a mental health issue: ‘Will I be sectioned for this?’ In conducting this research, it became more apparent to our team the responsibility that we have to truthfully present to the audience the daily struggle that Ashley faces both as a teenager, finding out about her own sexuality (and that of many others- as she runs a lunch-time sexual health clinic) and as a young person living with a mental illness. What’s more, it’s become apparent that through Thrush, we have the opportunity to create some frank, honest, and much needed dialogue with the local community around mental health.
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