Hard to Swallow. Mark Wheeller

city Youth Theatre group from Southampton, to tell her tragic and personal story. A few years ago I wrote a resource book¹ explaining the context and development of the play. A number of the original OYT cast contributed their vivid memories and Sarah Blackman, who ended up playing Catherine, recalled her thoughts on Maureen’s generosity:

      As an enthusiastic teen who believed very strongly in the medium of theatre to make an impact on people’s lives, it made perfect sense to me that Maureen Dunbar would allow us, an unknown entity with no track history of working together from a different socio-economic background, to be responsible for publicly portraying her story. I took her trust in our abilities for granted.

      As an adult, I cannot believe she agreed! I am blown away by her braveness to do so and the risk she took. I remember her saying her belief was that people close to Catherine’s age when she began to suffer from anorexia would have more of a simpatico relationship with her daughter.

      Of all the information given to us for research purposes, Catherine’s diaries, felt almost sacrosanct to me, verging on intrusion. I remember devouring them in one sitting, desperately trying to connect with this young woman. I was searching for clues to whatever issues in her life had led her to this “peculiar action” of strict management, and denial of food. Was her anorexia a psychological cause or a symptom?

      We were undoubtedly affected by the material. I might even suggest that we needed to be, in order to honour it. But, come curtain down, we had the choice of how much we ‘took with us’ back into our real life. It is a most humbling realisation that the people we were portraying on stage did not have that choice. The most we could offer them to ameliorate their pain was to use our performance to educate, enlighten, share, engender awareness amongst others or, at the very least, elicit compassion. In this respect, I hope our ragtag group from Southampton whose play seemed to coincide with the burgeoning general awareness of anorexia nervosa at that time justified Maureen’s faith in us.

      Her generosity benefited us in other ways too. I remember vividly Maureen saying to us that she wanted Catherine’s trust fund to grant us funds to do something exciting with the play. We decided to use these funds to initiate a project to take us (and the play) to America. Again, I shall offer Sarah’s recollections (from my Hard to Swallow – Easy To Digest book) as they will communicate the extraordinary situation we were suddenly placed in:

      I consider what happened next to represent the apex of our very own holy (theatrical) trinity:

      First the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Fringe), then the performance at the National Theatre…

      … then to top it all…

      … a trip to Texas! Yee hah!

      Mark might as well have taken us on a tour of Mars! So alien did our contemporaries’ lives seem to me then. I remember being flabbergasted by the cultural differences between two nations who spoke the same language.

      We were all paired with students from The Houston School for Visual and Performing Arts, which served as our HQ. I assume every student automatically graduates with a Master’s in ‘dancing on the tables at lunchtime’. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was up on the nearest available surface ‘bustin’ moves’! It was like ‘Fame’… in cowboy boots!

      We participated in some of their classes which was nerve-wracking! I remember one exercise where we each had to share something we were ‘afraid of’. Well, we Brits thought we’d done well by spitting out things you might expect such as ‘dying’, ‘being alone’ etc. and then one American student said;

      “I’m afraid I’m going to take my dad’s shotgun one of these days and kill him!”

      I don’t think anyone managed to top that one!

      Guns, it turned out, were everywhere … including, at one school we visited, the school canteen! A change from our British dinner ladies! It was wonderfully, bizarre.

      The shared enthusiasm towards theatre proved the main bonding mechanism. One friend I still have, flew to the UK and we went to the Edinburgh Festival together.

      We performed in many schools and colleges over the three weeks we were there. The audiences were very receptive to our performances. They really took things to heart. The Arts students took acting very seriously. They were very interested in how we could perform something like ‘Hard to Swallow’ and not be negatively psychologically affected ourselves.

      We performed at a hospital during the Doctors’ lunchtime. They brought their sandwiches with them to the auditorium and I remember thinking “this will be interesting when it comes to the binge scene…”

      I found our American cousins much more open about their feelings than we were but with an incredibly earnest overlay. Our cultural overlay is dry humour. I’d sign up for the time-machine and relive these experiences again without reservation. They were like inserting glorious technicolor onto our black and white seeming lives. It was manna from heaven for a teenager seeking heightened experiences. I don’t think I slept much, there was always something to do, see, or someone to talk theatre-shop or personal ambitions with.

      We also managed to impress the specialist students from HSPVA with our work:

      For a young Texan just hearing a British person speak was magical. From what I remember I was blown away that y’all would have tackled a subject so “deep” back then. It was a wonderful production and inspired many of us to find more of our own voices through work that was so thought provoking and new to us.

      Josh Jordan (HSPVA student 1990)

      I distinctly remember that the subject was handled in such a way that teens understood it without it being “dumbed down”. The imagery and staging you all used was awesome. Trying to express what was in the main character’s mind. How she perceived the social world around her. Lastly, Sarah (as Catherine) was fantastic! I remember thinking “these kids are better than us.” I know I was not alone in that thought.

      Wade Williams (HSPVA student 1990)

      These comments came as a real boost when I saw them in 2017 researching my Easy To Digest book. I’d always felt we had made a good impression, but for them to remember it so vividly all these years later is a further testament to the quality of my wonderful Youth Theatre performers. We were only in HSPVA for a week or two!

      Just to stress her commitment to our project, Maureen came with a friend to watch one of our performances! We did all we could to thank her for giving us all these various opportunities but it’s nigh on impossible to express heartfelt thanks over and over again. Maureen had given so much of herself to us and we all hoped she had gained something in return.

      I went to see Maureen in 2017 at the same time as I was writing the resource book. It was wonderful to be able to inform her that Hard to Swallow was to become a set text for the new Eduqas GCSE (9-1) Drama exam. She was obviously delighted. No one could have anticipated that back in 1988 when we had our first contact.

      As she walked me into her kitchen, I had the most wonderful surprise. There, on the side, was a picture of Catherine (the one that appeared on the front of her book) and beside it, a photo montage our Youth Theatre cast had given Maureen after the very first performance to offer her a permanent memory and show our gratitude. It was heartwarming to know that we mattered to Maureen as much as she did to us.

      Speaking to Anna today was so lovely. She said how her mum always spoke warmly of the OYT years. I told her about this new publication, about which I hadn’t yet said anything to Maureen. My plan was to surprise her with a copy in the post!

      An incredible knock-on effect of the play becoming a set text was that I was approached by TiE It Up Theatre (who claim to “make a drama out of learning”) to tour the play professionally. This had happened many years previously but schools now need to see the play in 3D to be able to study the play effectively. I was delighted, but also somewhat apprehensive. I knew nothing about the company nor the people behind it. They seemed nice on the phone, plus given that no one like the Royal Shakespeare Company were looking to tour it, my feeling was – nothing ventured, nothing gained.

      I