Impact, which comes to London’s Hen & Chickens theatre later this month, delves into the world of male mental health by exploring what happens when you witness an incident big enough to make the national headlines. Book your tickets now.
The one-man show runs at the Highbury venue from 28 to 30 November 2019.
Taking a real incident that took place in Glasgow in 2014 as its starting point, Impact examines what happens to four fictitious men who were there on that day when many lives were changed forever. A crash of such proportions that it makes countrywide news cannot help but affect the lives of all those that witnessed it.
But what if your life was difficult before this event. Does such a public tragedy help you overcome your troubles? Or make them worse? Or, ultimately, make no change to it whatsoever?
Impact, which was previously known as Glasgow ’14, was inspired by a bin lorry crash on 22 December 2014, when the driver was said to have blacked out at the wheel. Six people were killed in the incident and 15 were injured.
Sally Lewis, Impact playwright
Impact was written by Sally Lewis to explore the ‘unseen’ illness of male mental health, and deals in particular with the ‘masculine’ habit of not talking about problems and feelings. Three quarters of all suicides are by men, and for men under 35 years-old, suicide is the UK’s biggest cause of death. Men also have measurably lower access to the social support of friends, relatives and community.
Playwright Lewis started her career as a health and fitness writer, drawing on that background and previous colleagues and connections to research Impact. Previous play How is Uncle John? was staged at the Edinburgh Festival and at Southampton’s Nuffield Theatre, while another play, Fam, was longlisted for both the Bruntwood and Papatango Prizes in 2017.
Neil Gwynne plays all four of the men in Impact. The Arts Ed graduate previously toured in Scaramouche Jones and was directed by Benet Catty in an Arts Ed production of The Angry Brigade. It is director Catty who is also at the helm of this production. His 20-year career has seen him stage productions including Equus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Sunday in the Park with George, Angels in America, Sweeney Todd and A View From The Bridge.
The same team took this production of Impact to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2018, when it received a host of four and five star reviews, being described by Broadway Baby as “bold, courageous and innovative” and Lexical Lunacy as “the finest action from a single performer.”
Impact is the first of two shows produced by Free@Last TV to run at the Hen & Chickens Theatre this winter. It is followed, from 11-21 December, by Jud Charlton‘s festive treat, Charles Dickens’s A (One-Man) Christmas Carol.
About Impact producers Free@Last TV
Free@last TV
Free@Last TV is an independent scripted television production company established in 2001 in London that has produced more than 500 hours of television for a range of broadcasters including the BBC, ITV, Sky, UKTV and Channel 4, across a range of genres. Its flagship drama, Agatha Raisin, first broadcast as a one-off Christmas special on Sky One Boxing Day 2014 before being picked up to series, airing in 2016.
