A partnership between AMRC and Y Touring

Y Touring, Central YMCA’s award winning touring theatre company, has been working with young and adult audiences since 1989 to highlight important, often difficult, current issues, including those in the biosciences.

AMRC has been working with them since 2005. After the success of the first production, Every Breath, about the use of animals in medical research, we have extended the partnership to a trilogy, using high quality theatre and debate to explore three of the most prominent and controversial topics in medical research today. Thus, Nobody Lives Forever is about embryo and stem cell research, and Starfish, clinical trials.

All three plays are written by Judith Johnson and each project is guided by an expert advisory board representing key aspects of the debates covered.

To date, the plays have toured mainly to schools audiences, supported by carefully researched educational resources for teachers across the curriculum.

Stop Press: We are very keen to take this trilogy to new places, and perform to new audiences. Please contact us if you would like to sponsor such events.

The use of animals in medical research: Every Breath

Every Breath explores the serious social, moral and scientific questions raised by the use of animals in medical research. Targeted at students aged 14+, Every Breath has toured 80 schools and been performed to 17,000 young people and adults across the UK.

The play has also been made into a podcast, DVD (with funding from the Department of Children, Schools and Families) and impressed adult audiences, winning the Golden Cockerel Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 2006.

The podcast and extensive further material, including film clips, are available on the Theatre of Debate website.

Sponsors and Partners

The Wellcome Trust, Central YMCA, the Home Office, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department of Children, Schools and Families and the Department Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

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Embryo and stem cell research: Nobody Lives Forever

Nobody Lives Forever explores the social, moral and scientific questions raised by stem cell research. The play tells the story of an unconventional family, the sudden discovery that certain members are affected by a serious illness and the very different impact this has on each of them.

The play completed a tour of schools in London in January/February 2008 and a national tour later that same year. A series of performances in May were shown at the Wellcome Collection to coincide with discussion of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in the House of Commons.

Finally, the play was selected by the Royal Albert Hall as its flagship for a “mega-debate” involving schools invited to make short films further exploring the debate. These were shown, and the topic debated with a panel of experts, at the Royal Albert Hall in April 2009.

Sponsors and Partners

Action Medical Research, the Department of Health, the Medical Research Council and the Royal Albert Hall.

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Clinical trials: Starfish

Starfish launched its first tour in London in January 2009 and will tour nationally in the autumn.

Set in a small British town, it tells the interwoven tales of Adrian, his son Michael, Shannon, one of his students, and Saira, Michael’s ex-girlfriend and the local doctor.  Starfish looks at the importance of clinical trials through their stories, while also confronting complex dilemmas associated with social phobia, patient consent, bereavement and grief.  

Sponsors and Partners

The Wellcome Trust, Central YMCA, Centre of the Cell

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