Sessions Archives - North West End UK

13Aug

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

Sessions – Zoo Playground

What should we do with violent young men? Lock them up and ‘throw away the key’? Or try to rehabilitate them? ‘Sessions’ is the story of 17-year-old George, a violent offender, who is fortunate to avoid a prison sentence. Instead he is given community service and ordered to attend weekly sessions with a social worker. This timely play comes amidst a longstanding concern about violence amongst disaffected youth. The show starts with the sound of news bulletins about youth crime, austerity cuts including a reduction in youth services, and the links between those spending cuts and crime. Our incarceration rate is higher than that of most other European countries. The new Labour Government is releasing offenders early because of a shortage of prison places. What’s the solu...

Sessions – Soho Theatre

In a small upstairs theatre, we meet a man- Tunde and he’s about to turn 30. We are welcomed in by him in the small corners of his room, filled with cardboard boxes and an atmosphere consumed with music. We begin as he begins his first therapy session which he thought right to attend so he can start going to the gym again, wanting to look good for his upcoming birthday. However, through the excessive laughter and narration of his running thoughts during these sessions, we hear and see him break down into something a lot more fragile. Within this time, we watch Tunde bounce back and forth through stability and never-ending deep waters, learning a lot more about what he has lost in avoiding the most vulnerable parts of himself. Ifeyinwa Frederick (the writer) has an incredible ability to ...

Sessions – Unity Theatre

Ifeyinwa Frederick’s eloquent and captivating meditation on masculinity and mental health is brought to vibrant life in this touring production from theatre company Paines Plough. Tunde (Joseph Black) is fast approaching his thirtieth birthday and somehow, he feels his life is unravelling. His relationships both with himself and other people seem fragile and fractured, so he seeks help from his unseen therapist in one-to-one sessions to alleviate his anxieties and try to look forward with renewed confidence. It’s not an easy journey for Tunde as the piece reveals. This one-man performance is a fairly simple construct and much depends on both Fredericks writing and Black’s performance but what could appear to be a simply framed set of monologues morphs into something a lot mo...