All Things Considered are touring their newest production ‘8 Hours There and Back’ inspired by the experiences of children who have a parent in prison and told through a fusion of theatre, dance and projections, 8 Hours There and Back examines how a system set up by adults is failing the children.
The appointment of James Timpson as prisons minister and the new Labour government's recent legislative steps underline the urgency and relevance of this production. Timpson's progressive stance on prison reform, emphasising rehabilitation over punishment, echoes the themes explored in 8 Hours There and Back. His focus on community sentencing and support systems for non-violent offenders aligns with Labour's new policy to release certain prisoners early, aiming to reduce overcrowding and improve conditions in prisons.
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| Photo by Brian Roberts |
The piece is heading out on a tour with dates in September and October 2024. Ahead of this we caught up with some of the creative team including director Emma Bramley and writer Sarah Hogarth as well as cast members Cal Connor, Olivia Lamb and Rio Star.
What can you tell me about All Things Considered and 8 Hours There and Back?
From Press Release:
ABOUT ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
All Things Considered are a female led theatre company telling stories worth telling. We create intimate, socially engaged work for, with and by communities.
Since we started in 2013 All Things Considered have been creating socially engaged theatre that encourages honest and pertinent conversations between people through intimate, participatory and immersive performances.
Much of our work is verbatim because we love chatting to people and discovering the funny, moving and unique stories that we all have inside us. These hidden conversations are the starting point for our performances which, have explored various topics, from male suicide, parenthood and growing up skint in the 1980s.
We invite our audiences to physically step into the world of our performances, to rub shoulders with the performers and to absorb first hand the weight of the words from the people we have spoken to.
We aim to prompt the ripples of change though creative conversation as well as systemic change through informing policy and practice. Our hope is that in this intimate space our audiences will feel closer to the stories we present and this will prompt them to reflect, connect, change and understand both personally and communally.
About The Show:
Inspired by the real-life testimonies of children and young people who have a parent in prison and told through a fusion of theatre, dance and projections, 8 Hours There and Back examines how a system set up by adults is failing the children.
Our lives are timed around phone calls and visits that clash with our footy practice, dance classes, mate’s birthday parties, school lessons… We move house and live with our nans, granddads, aunties and uncles. We go to school and dodge looks and questions, what did they do? How long did they get? Have you seen them? We get our heads down, try to get good marks, stay out of trouble, blend in, be normal…’ 8 Hours There and Back follows the stories of Ruby, Jake and Grace as they navigate a world that they shouldn’t be in and a judicial system that has forgotten about them.
‘I mean it is like, horrible for the person that’s went away because… obviously there’s all different types of people in prison… but like… it’s the family that’s got to live with it on the outside and… the outside… is a lot bigger.’
300,000 children are impacted by parental incarceration but there is very little understanding or representation of their stories and experiences. 8 Hours There and Back is based on the testimonies of children with this lived experience and is drawn from three years of collaborative work between All Things Considered Theatre, Time Matters UK, Families Outside and Unity Theatre, Liverpool. In addition to this we are now collaborating with organisations that work with families who are impacted by parental imprisonment across the North of England, these include: NEPACS, PACT, Jigsaw, Clinks, POPS and Out There.
Where did the inspiration for the piece come from?
Emma: What inspired me to make this performance was finding out that a family member had been in prison and that he was very very ashamed of it and I found this really fascinating: that idea that someone could carry that shame for so long and then I was watching the TV and these beautiful young people popped up on the screen from Time Matters UK and were sharing their stories about how that shame passes on to them and I thought that was a fascinating story and something that I wanted to investigate further.
How did you approach the writing of the story?
Sarah: We spent over 5 years researching the topic, reading lots of documents and watching interviews. Most importantly at the heart of this is the real stories of the young people that we spoke to: we interviewed over 60 young people. The approach was to look at what they really want to say, what they want to change so this performance highlights their stories but it’s also a call to action. That helped me to decide what the content was going to be within the performance and gave it fragmented stages to talk about prison visits, stigmatisation, feeling like a criminal, experience with school and social workers, what happens when your parents are released etc. Then with those 60 voices we had to work out how to tie and knit these stories into 3 individual characters, with each character having a single authentic voice and from that we created a show based around our three main characters: Jake, Grace and Ruby.
From Press Release:
ABOUT ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
All Things Considered are a female led theatre company telling stories worth telling. We create intimate, socially engaged work for, with and by communities.
Since we started in 2013 All Things Considered have been creating socially engaged theatre that encourages honest and pertinent conversations between people through intimate, participatory and immersive performances.
Much of our work is verbatim because we love chatting to people and discovering the funny, moving and unique stories that we all have inside us. These hidden conversations are the starting point for our performances which, have explored various topics, from male suicide, parenthood and growing up skint in the 1980s.
We invite our audiences to physically step into the world of our performances, to rub shoulders with the performers and to absorb first hand the weight of the words from the people we have spoken to.
We aim to prompt the ripples of change though creative conversation as well as systemic change through informing policy and practice. Our hope is that in this intimate space our audiences will feel closer to the stories we present and this will prompt them to reflect, connect, change and understand both personally and communally.
About The Show:
Inspired by the real-life testimonies of children and young people who have a parent in prison and told through a fusion of theatre, dance and projections, 8 Hours There and Back examines how a system set up by adults is failing the children.
Our lives are timed around phone calls and visits that clash with our footy practice, dance classes, mate’s birthday parties, school lessons… We move house and live with our nans, granddads, aunties and uncles. We go to school and dodge looks and questions, what did they do? How long did they get? Have you seen them? We get our heads down, try to get good marks, stay out of trouble, blend in, be normal…’ 8 Hours There and Back follows the stories of Ruby, Jake and Grace as they navigate a world that they shouldn’t be in and a judicial system that has forgotten about them.
‘I mean it is like, horrible for the person that’s went away because… obviously there’s all different types of people in prison… but like… it’s the family that’s got to live with it on the outside and… the outside… is a lot bigger.’
300,000 children are impacted by parental incarceration but there is very little understanding or representation of their stories and experiences. 8 Hours There and Back is based on the testimonies of children with this lived experience and is drawn from three years of collaborative work between All Things Considered Theatre, Time Matters UK, Families Outside and Unity Theatre, Liverpool. In addition to this we are now collaborating with organisations that work with families who are impacted by parental imprisonment across the North of England, these include: NEPACS, PACT, Jigsaw, Clinks, POPS and Out There.
Where did the inspiration for the piece come from?
Emma: What inspired me to make this performance was finding out that a family member had been in prison and that he was very very ashamed of it and I found this really fascinating: that idea that someone could carry that shame for so long and then I was watching the TV and these beautiful young people popped up on the screen from Time Matters UK and were sharing their stories about how that shame passes on to them and I thought that was a fascinating story and something that I wanted to investigate further.
How did you approach the writing of the story?
Sarah: We spent over 5 years researching the topic, reading lots of documents and watching interviews. Most importantly at the heart of this is the real stories of the young people that we spoke to: we interviewed over 60 young people. The approach was to look at what they really want to say, what they want to change so this performance highlights their stories but it’s also a call to action. That helped me to decide what the content was going to be within the performance and gave it fragmented stages to talk about prison visits, stigmatisation, feeling like a criminal, experience with school and social workers, what happens when your parents are released etc. Then with those 60 voices we had to work out how to tie and knit these stories into 3 individual characters, with each character having a single authentic voice and from that we created a show based around our three main characters: Jake, Grace and Ruby.
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| Photo by Brian Roberts |
Olivia: So the character I play: Ruby is really playful and lively and I think she definitely uses that as a coping mechanism, with being the youngest in the group she uses that to shy away from any of the harsh truth and I think It's quite evident in the play that she tries to make light of any of the dark situations
How do you approach developing the role?
Olivia: I think everyone has a lot of playfulness within them. I'm quite playful and quite lively so it's not been too hard to embrace that character. I think also trying to capture those moments where she does realise when things are serious but then snapping straight back out of that because she doesn't want to face it. so I feel like it's not been too hard as I'm quite playful myself anyway but of course you also have to make sure you're capturing the light of these kids' stories.
I am a dancer first so I’ve loved all of the movement pieces and find i'm quite in tune with my body so that comes quite easy - obviously theres still been challenges with the movement such as ensuring that I'm still the character and not losing the body language of Ruby while doing the movement pieces but it’s been really enjoyable and fun.
What research have you done to prepare for the run?
Cal: In preparing for this role I did a lot of research into kids that have a parent in prison, because I think it’s important as it’s a verbatim piece to keep these characters in the story real and authentic so I did a lot of research on how children who have a parent in person how it affects their mental health, so I could work out how I go about going around as my character, walking as my character, how to speak as my character.
There are a lot of kids that have a parent in prison who have to deal with a lot of mental health issues.I researched that around 3000 kids in merseyside have a parent in prison - that was a big shock for me - so taking that into consideration that a lot of these kids have a few people to relate to, there are loads of kids going through this. I considered that in how my character Jake would react with Ruby and Grace - he's able to feel comfortable and can relate to the other two characters.
If you could ask your character one question, what would you ask?
Rio: I’d ask my character Grace where she wants to be in ten years. Grace is a very ambitious person, she's a determined person and she doesn't let her mum being in prison stop her from achieving what she wants to do in life. She plays the role of someone who takes care of the other two even though she is only the middle one in terms of age - but she's very ambitious, she does well in school and I think she is determined.
Cal: I would ask Jake what he would say to his dad if he saw him
Olivia: I’d ask Ruby what scares her most and why does she keep away from it so much and what would help her overcome it?
How do you unwind after a performance?
Olivia: Definitely look after my body and health, go home, do a bit of self care, roll out my muscles and eat a good meal to refuel for the next day.
Cal: I will either go to the gym to just rest my mind or do a sauna and swim to rest my body , or I really like listening to 30/90 from Tick Tick Boom which is a proper feel good song so i'll literally listen to that to get some good vibes.
Rio: I get a good tea down my neck, chill out. watch a film, a bit of self care, skin care, and go to bed - have an early night!
When did you know this was the career for you?
Cal: So my dad was obsessed with films and he introduced me to films, and I remember he took me to see Blood Brother for the first time and after that I thought I Want to be an actor and obsessed with theatre so that was the inspiration
Rio: What inspired me to want to be a performer is embodying different people and getting to delve into different peoples emotions - watching high school musical in my living room was a big inspiration in wanting to become an actor.
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| Photo by Brian Roberts |
What keeps you inspired?
Olivia: I am majorly inspired by theatre company ZooNation because they're very heavily movement based and theatre based. I would love love love to be part of that one day - I love anything that involves theatre or movement and I thought this was the perfect to involve both
Where can people see the show?
Unity Theatre, Liverpool: Fri 13th & Sat 14th September
Interplay, Leeds: Wednesday 2nd October (Invited audience only)
Old Electric, Blackpool: Friday 4th October
HMP Drake Hall, Stafford: Thursday 9th October (Invited audience only)
Arts Centre, Edge Hill University: Wednesday 16th October
Hipp @ The Hullabaloo, Darlington Hippodrome: Thursday 17th October
Waterside Arts, Sale: Friday 18th October
The Dukes, Lancaster: Tuesday 22nd October
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