TAKE CARE
"My mother didn't like being told what to do. And her favourite trick was waiting for the postman, and then posting the letters back out..."
At the heart of Take Care is Pam, a woman fighting for better end-of-life care for her mother. We follow her journey as she goes from working on complaints at British Airways to becoming a full out campaigner and political spokesperson.
Along the way we meet other characters and hear their real-life stories; Lydia keeps getting proposed to by Rodney, Sharon’s mother will swear blindly at her but be polite to the priest; Charlie has a mishap in a hospital involving tea, biscuits and porn.
What binds them all together? They are all part of a care system for older people. A system that is in dire need of repair.
Take Care is crafted from interviews taken with key workers over 6 years.
"Beautiful, heartbreaking and comical.
It is a crucial and relevant piece of theatre, questioning society's values and provoking audiences.
This is something more than theatre. This is real."
****
THE SCOTSMAN
"A high calibre of acting is needed to pull this off and the cast more than deliver. With each of them multi-rolling, we are offered intricate and compelling characterisations."
****
BROADWAYWORLD
"It's going to make you feel something. Which is exactly what theatre should do."
****
SPY IN THE STALLS
RISK ASSESSMENT
“Universities. NHS. It's all the same once the private sector get their trots through the door and start feeding”
Risk Assessment focusses on Clara, a damaged lecturer returning to work at an Arts University after a long sabbatical. A new management is in place, a doubling of student numbers, and a disturbing tendency of lowering academic standards.
Risk Assessment highlights with disquieting wit the dangerous moral and ethical consequences of treating students as customers and Universities as corporations.
Part-verbatim, this is Conny Templeman's first work as a playwright. She previously worked as a feature film director and screenwriter, with casts that have included Daniel Day Lewis, Imogen Stubbs and Bill Nighy.
"A haunting, humorous play about the dying romance of the English Liberal Arts University and the passionate idealism that powers it."
PAMELA EDWARDS,
METHUEN DRAMA
"It brilliantly exposes the idiocy of the commodification of high education, academic 'politicians' and the toll it takes on teachers. I laugh - a lot - but blood ran cold a few times."
ANNIE TYSON,
DIRECTOR
"A big, bold, angry play. My instinct is Conny Templeman has ended her long silence to make us sit up and think."