This is a local story with a global imprint. It took place only a stone’s throw from the doors of the Cardiff theatre in which it movingly, rip-roaringly plays out, and it might better be called a revolution for how it changed the lives of neurodivergent people around the world.
It is the 1970s and university student Jim Mansell (Peter Mooney) volunteers at Ely hospital in between protesting over South African apartheid and the Vietnam war (“Why do you think you have to save the world?”, asks his girlfriend, Sally). The “patients” are lifetime residents who, under UK law, are placed in care because of their learning disabilities, often institutionalised from birth and, in this case, existing in a hospital that has hit the headlines for alleged abuse.
A friendship builds between Jim and Alan Duncan (Gareth John), who has Down syndrome and yearns to live in his own home – and be in a band. Mansell first begins taking the group out to the park and then petitioning doctors to grant greater freedoms.
Produced in partnership with inclusive theatre company Hijinx (there is a sign interpreter and captions throughout), it is dynamically directed by Joe Murphy and Ben Pettitt-Wade, and exuberantly performed by a cast of neurodivergent and neurotypical actors. It traces an important moment in the history of care and places a spotlight on the cultural invisibility that surrounds the neurodiverse community.
Scenes segue into gig-like musical interludes, a rock band shoehorned around the stage. The blasts of music bring rousing, upbeat notes to some dark material (Slade’s Cum on Feel the Noize is a recurring number). Natasha Cottriall, as Sally, has a glorious singing voice, while Eveangeleis Tudball, as a ward nurse, doubles up as a singer too.
Period costumes and picaresque characters make it seem almost like a 1970s-style TV comedy, and John (as Alan), Lindsay Foster (as Heather), and Matthew Mullins (as John) are energetic, charming performers. Tim Green’s script wears its complexity and depth lightly, while Carl Davies’ loose, mobile set (a trolley of books denoting the library, an iron frame for a bus stop, a hospital bed for Alan’s room) contains flowing imagination.
In 1974, after years of campaigning by Mansell, five people from Ely hospital came to live with him as “housemates”. That “experiment” gave birth to the current model of supported living, first in the UK, then around the world. It is an astounding story, entertainingly and movingly realised.
At Sherman theatre, Cardiff, until 14 October
