True Stories from the Heart
Testing testing, my name is Liam, testing, I am 28, testing testing and I live in Bradford, testing.
CONTAINED is a vibrant, compelling and personal production. Nine interwoven true stories about family and friendships, love and loss, the everyday and the extraordinary.
The head teacher looked at me and said “I’m afraid you have to leave this school. There is no place for you here.”
Combining live performance, film, photography, music and dance, CONTAINED explores those small moments in life that suddenly become meaningful: moments that teach us about ourselves, and the world that we live in.
I left a part of me at Seacroft hospital that day.
Created in collaboration with Alan Lyddiard (Artistic Director of the Performance Ensemble and former Artistic Director of Northern Stage) and Denis Darzacq (award winning French Photographer and Filmmaker).
“It forces us to rethink the dominant narratives around disability, defiantly and joyously trashing any idea of lives diminished and less fully lived and experienced.” – Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
Past Performances
| Date | Venue | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 8 & 9 June 2017 | Square Chapel Arts Centre | Halifax |
| 27 May 2017 | Mittenmang Festival | Bremen, Germany |
| 25 May 2017 | The Lowry | Salford |
| 6 - 8 May 2017 | Northern Stage | Newcastle upon Tyne |
| 10 & 11 March 2017 | West Yorkshire Playhouse | Leeds |
| 24 - 26 January 2017 | La Condition Republique | Roubaix, France |
| 14 - 16 April 2016 | MTG Studios | Bradford |
| 23 & 24 March 2016 | The Albany | Deptford |
| 09 February 2016 | New Wolsey theatre | Ipswich |
| 15 & 26 January 2016 | Gulbenkian | Canterbury |
| 22 January 2016 | MTG Studios | Bradford |
| 19 & 20 November 2015 | Arena Theatre | Wolverhampton |
| 21 & 22 October 2015 | ARC | Stockton |
| 16 & 17 October 2015 | MTG Studios | Bradford |
Gallery
Videos
Press & Media
“This is an unmissable production and one which is incredibly well done, and well received by the audience from beginning to end.”
Dawn Smallwood – The Reviews Hub: Read the review!
“It’s encouraging that major producing houses are programming work by learning-disabled artists and providing space for symposium discussions linked to the shows. It brings the work and the conversations surrounding them into environments where there is the opportunity to usefully continue to disrupt and shift the status quo.”
Kate Lovell – Disability Arts Online: Read the article!
“It forces us to rethink the dominant narratives around disability, defiantly and joyously trashing any idea of lives diminished and less fully lived and experienced.”
Lyn Gardner – The Guardian: Read the review!
“Some of the tales relayed are heart-warmingly wonderful and life affirming… All are raw, unmasked, true emotion that can only come from a a place of vulnerability and are testimony to the security that this group of people find in their colleagues at Mind the Gap.”
Elizabeth Stanforth-Sharpe – A Clock in a Thunderstorm: Read the review!
“This show knows it’s the small things that happen that tell the biggest truths. It also knows that at the end, the best theatre has you leaving slightly more human for the experience of it.”
Jackie Montague – East Anglian Daily Times: Read the review!
“Most of us live at a shallow level of communication. Contained shows us that it doesn’t have to be this way; that a section of society that is all too frequently stereotyped and regarded in a derogatory fashion, can through openness and honesty, be more intelligent than the crowd.”
Colin Hambrook – Disability Arts Online: Read the review!
“Reflecting on Mind the Gap’s latest production, Contained, which tells the personal stories of its performers, Allan Sutherland argues that work which reflects disabled people’s experience of disability is essential to counter non-disabled narratives and assumptions.”
Allan Sutherland – Disability Arts Online: Read it here!
“Performer Paul Wilshaw reflects on what it has been like putting himself centre stage for Mind the Gap’s new touring show, CONTAINED, in an illuminating behind-the-scenes account of this unique production.”
Paul Wilshaw – Disability Arts Online: Read it here!
Comments & Reviews