Welcome back to our Offbeat Spotlight series. Over the next few days we're highlighting all the strange and wonderful things that the Offbeat Festival has to offer. The Offbeat Festival runs from the 9th-15th of September, and is a collaboration between The Old Fire Station, Oxford Playhouse, New Theatre and Gloucester Green Market. In addition to a multitude of shows, there are also workshops, and exhibition, late night events including a poetry slam, comedy scratch night, and listening party, and more.
Here, we talk with writer and performer Claire Nelson about her piece MotherHood, a solo show from the fresh perspective of a mother whose son has become involved in the world of knife crime. Read on for more.
Daily Information:Hi Claire, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us. What inspired you to create MotherHood?
Claire Nelson: The story is personal for me. It's based partly on lived experience as an incident involving knife-crime happened to a member of my family. Luckily they weren't seriously injured, but it opened my eyes to a world that young people can encounter. Many stories exist about that world seen through the eyes of young people, but as far as I'm aware no one had told the story yet in film or theatre from a parent's perspective.
DI: Your show tackles the topic of knife crime head-on. When dealing with heavy material, how do you balance unflinching honesty with keeping the audience from becoming overwhelmed or despondent?
CN: Humour! It's definitely not a comedy, but the play aims to find humour in some random moments. It also aims to show the universal situation of someone battling tough circumstances and finding a way to carry on.
DI: The show makes use of an original soundscape created by the In-Spire Project. Could you tell us a bit more about this?
CN: As well as being a professional recording studio In-Spire runs the ‘Inspiring Change Through Music’ project which supports 12-25 year olds facing a range of adversities from mental ill-health, isolation and anxiety, to risk of criminal, drug and sexual exploitation. When I planned the project I knew I wanted to include the voices of young people who had been affected by knife-crime.
Some of the young people on the In-Spire project were happy to be interviewed for this and I'm so grateful to them for their honesty, openness and courage in sharing their stories. Their voices have been used alongside music produced by Kingsley 'King' Boyden, aided by Samuel Mansell.
DI: If you had to compare the vibes of your show to another piece of media, what would it be?
CN: In terms of theatre someone has compared it to 'Death of England' by Roy Williams and Clint Dyer. Thinking about film and tv perhaps some of the work of the director Shane Meadows, best known for 'This is England'...Not sure why both titles have 'England' in them, maybe because I've tried to write about ordinary lives in a real way.
DI: After Offbeat, what's next for you?
CN: I would love for MotherHood to have a life past this performance at Offbeat. I'd like to tour it and continue to open up the conversation about knife-crime. I'm also part of the 'Mama Quilla's Mentoring Women Writer's Initiative' a group founded by the writer and actress Kay Adshead to give a platform for emerging female writers exploring social and political issues. We're starting a new project about women and war soon.
In researching for the show I came across the work of the Daniel Baird Foundation. This organisation, started by Lynne Baird, a bereaved mother who lost her son to knife-crime, aims to raise awareness of the importance of bleed kits.
Similar to public access defibrillators these kits contain vital equipment designed to control bleeding and stabilise an injured person before professional medical help arrives. These could potentially save the lives of not just knife-crime victims but anyone suffering a severe bleed as a result of a work-related injury or road accident.
I discovered that Oxford doesn't have any of these yet, so decided to start a Crowdfund for this, which can be
found here. Oxford City Council have agreed to help get some installed for this, but this will only happen with public help.
Please donate if you can. Just google bleed kits Oxford Crowdfund. This could help save a life.
DI: Finally, please describe MotherHood in three words.
CN: Powerful, Unexpected, Real
MotherHood is on at the Burton Taylor Theatre, on Wed 11th Sep, 6.30pm. For more info and to book tickets, click here.