LUNG Theatre’s
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.
