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Woodhill

 
Laura Tucker Review by Laura Tucker 4 Published: 17 Aug 2023 Summerhall Show Dates: 2 Aug 2023-27 Aug 2023

LUNG Theatre’s Woodhill is not an easy watch but a worthy one. Highlighting the very real failures of the UK’s prison system through visceral choreography, this award-winning verbatim theatre company tells the stories of three troubled men who all died in the care of HMP Woodhill, narrated by the grieving families left behind.

A chilling true story exploring pain and grief through visceral choreography

But the story is clear: These three men are not the only ones.

In its voiceover, Woodhill demands answers. Answers to burning questions like: What is the justification for using public money to line the pockets of private security companies ahead of adequate social care funding? Why has the prison population doubled since Thatcher? What happens when we don’t tackle societal epidemics of addiction and mental illness in our young people? And, why is it that suicide is one of the biggest killers of young men in our society?

Woodhill asks all this and more, using dance to express the implicit violence behind the government’s inaction. The families of the dead perform their dance of pulsating grief, stuck without answers, while their accusatory voices rise up against the complacent prison guards, lawyers and judges involved. The dancers recreate simulated strangulation in dusty beams of overhead light, self-administrating a fatal dose with the jerk of a neck, knocking desperately on bars to be seen or heard.

In its darkness, Woodhill looks for light, but optimism is found wanting. Instead, Woodhill brings into question the extreme lack of mental health funding in wider society. Without a social safety net, prison becomes inevitable, leading society’s most damaged people down a one-way path to addiction, self-harm, mental illness and suicide.

The entirety of Woodhill is a statement of blame but also a call for reform. All thirty-three men mentioned deserved more. As a society, we can no longer ignore men’s mental health and pretend that incarceration is a solution.

The show ends with a direct call to join the fight with Inquest, the UK’s only charity investigating state-related deaths in the search for truth, justice and accountability. By joining the call, we help shine the light in the right place; firmly, squarely on a broken system that needs fixing.

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The Blurb:

‘I dance in the horror of grief.’ Three men at Woodhill prison are dead. Their families demand answers. This is a call to arms about the crisis facing prisons. Gut-punching choreography and unflinching beats shine a light on the hidden story of HMP Woodhill. Lyrically told in their own words, three families investigate what happened to their boys. What they discover is so haunting, it turns their world upside down. An explosive true story by multi-award-winning LUNG and The North Wall. ***** ‘Brave and astutely political’ (WhatsOnStage on Trojan Horse) **** ‘Long live LUNG’ (The Stage on Who Cares)