Leeds theatre company ‘imagine if’ will premiere a new outdoor performance over the Bank Holiday weekend, challenging perceptions of people with convictions.
Nick Ahad interviews Francesca Joy and participant Ryan about Is Anyone There?
Is Anyone There? Is an outdoor community theatre production by imagine if. A team of theatre professionals and community members come together to perform an explosive performance over the bank holiday weekend. Everyone’s got a story to tell, whose are you going to listen to?
Leeds-based theatre company imagine if will stage ‘Is Anyone There?’, an outdoor community theatre performance, at The Holbeck on Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 August 2021.
‘Is Anyone There?’ is co-devised, bringing together a team of theatre professionals (including Slung Low’s Alan Lane) and members of imagine if’s Phoenix programme. The production will be staged outdoors and will explore themes of social inequality, masculinity, poverty, and class.
Deafblind UK has partnered with Leeds-based theatre company imagine if to raise awareness of sight and hearing loss across Yorkshire.
The charity will be raising awareness at performances of Jadek, which is a production based on the true story of a Yorkshire woman who moves in with her grandad who is blind and hard of hearing.
Jadek (Polish for grandfather) by Francesca Joy, opens with Tasha laying on the floor, curled up, in her 94 year old Grandad’s house.
York Theatre Royal’s studio is a pretty small performance space and tonight it was laid out in such a way that, as the audience filtered into the room, we had to walk across the set and through the lives of the characters we were yet to meet. In a way, the sight was quite shocking – we passed the skeletal ruins of a sofa, cardboard boxes and discarded items across the floor. And then, as we passed a coffee table, there lay the body of a young woman, positioned in such way that we had to step over or around her to reach our seats. This set up raised questions in our minds that we hoped would be answered, it forced us to take a walk through the lives of the characters of Jadek and enabled us to form an instant connection with them.
In Jadek, the studio was transformed into a down at heel suburban living room where a granddad and his granddaughter Tasha are doing their best to rub along. Superficially, their lives couldn’t be more different.
He was born in Poland; she is very much British. He is blind; she has seen more than a young girl ever should. He is cut off from the outside world; she is forced to experience its harsh reality every day.
While a familial relationship – albeit a seriously dark and disturbing one – is at the heart of The Beauty Queen of Leenane, a new play from Yorkshire writer Francesca Joy explores the same subject from a very different place.
Jadek is a semi-autobiographical piece of work from Joy about a woman in her 20s moving in with her blind, 94-year-old Polish grandfather.
The play explores how the unexpected coming together of this odd couple affected both their lives. Like the Hull Truck production, audiences will see the way older and younger relatives impact on each other’s lives, although Joy’s play comes from a very different place.
When playwright Francesca Joy moved in with her grandad she didn’t expect it would result in a new work for her company imagine if based on their odd couple living arrangements.
“Jadek is very loosely based on me living with my blind Polish grandad, so it’s not autobiographical,” says Francesca. “It’s how we connect, so it’s not using our real stories just for a bit of fucking drama, a bit of theatre. I spent a long time making up Jadek so going from a real place, but then making up what actually happens.”
