Resistant Families

There has sadly been a lot of child abuse cases in the news recently. The way some parents treat their children with remarkable cruelty. Starving them.  Burning them.  Locking them up in dark rooms and recently in LA putting them in a microwave.

When a child is seriously injured or killed there is usually, in England and North America some form of review [Serious Case Review) to try to understand why the agencies involved could not do more to safeguard the wellbeing of the child(ren).  The big problem that social workers, the police and health professionals have is that families are ‘resistant’ That is they refuse to cooperate with enquiries from /safeguarding agencies. They tell lies. They disguise compliance. They get threatening and aggressive and generally take steps to avoid their children being ‘assessed’ by professionals.

The ‘resistant families’ are particularly hard to deal with for child protection professionals – especially when the authorities have little or no statutory or legal platform on which to base their enquiries.

EYEWITNESS THEATRE COMPANY is the theatrical component of I-WITNESS PUBLICATIONS and has performed many of the plays that I-WITNESS has published.  EYEWITNESS spent last week in the Kingston and Richmond areas of London with specially scripted scenarios and theatre workshops that got to the heart of how professionals might manage ‘resistant families’ who kill or seriously injure their offspring.  It looks likely that there will be a whole bunch of these very successful and stimulating modules (You can contact us for more details).

OUR DAILY BREAD has been a big EYEWITNESS stalwart for over 30 years. Having won an Edinburgh Fringe First in the mid-eighties, the play concerns a young single mum who burns her son with a cigarette. As the drama unfolds the secrets, hopes, wishes and tragedies of the two protagonists. Sharon, the mum, and her social worker Janice are laid bare in a fascinating two-hander.

Perhaps the biggest ever child abuse in history was the actions of MEDEA who slaughtered her children merely to exact5 revenge on her husband Jason (he of the Argonauts fame). EYEWITNESS produced their own version of Euripides famous Greek /tragedy and it won award after award. The BBC called it ‘Unique! On a different level’; and in Orlando where it won the Festival, The Sentinel hailed it as ‘Theatre that spins!’. Take a look it really is on a different level.

If you have work relating to social issues that you are wanting published, i-Witness would love to hear from you. Contact us to tell us more about your work and how we can help you become self-published.

 

The play’s the thing

The shape of writing is changing. It’s not just full-length novels that budding authors are undertaking. There are lots of ways to get your ideas across. Plays and Poetry are exciting ways to transmit your message – not least because they offer the chance of having your work broadcast – performed on stage or read aloud in an atmospheric corner of a warm, welcome pub. Performance Poetry is decidedly on the increase and offers a unique and life changing experience to air your work in public and bask in the post-read afterglow. Having your poetry published means that you can refer your new fans in the direction of obtaining their own copy of the stuff they have just heard – to peruse and admire at their leisure.

 

Performance poetry – Decidedly on the increase

Getting a play produced is difficult but the process is given more clout if the work has been published professionally. Theatre Companies and Producers are more likely to sit up and take note if they have something appear on their laptop that looks expert and reliable.

 

i-Witness have recently published OUR DAILY BREAD which will soon be in hard copy and already the author PETER MCGARRY has received offers of further work on the back of this publication.

OUR DAILY BREAD is a one-act play that concerns an incident of ‘significant harm’ to baby Leo, age 18 months, when Social Worker, Janice, discovers, that young, single mum Sharon has, in frustration, burnt her son’s wrists and forearms with a cigarette. A Child Protection Order is taken out and a court case to obtain an Interim Care order is processed.

During the portrayal of the maltreatment and the subsequent legal steps to ensure the safety of the child the script examines the life of the two disparate women thrust together by the uneasy circumstance of child abuse to become enmeshed in the labyrinth of a topic that has dominated the headlines for the past thirty years. A divorced unfulfilled Social Worker and a young volatile mother mirror each other’s lives and the reflections lay bare the bleak defects in their circumstances – money, sex, men and the desolate prospect of a bleak empty future. Lurking behind the witty dialogue and the raw angry humour lie the blemishes of Domestic Violence, Sexual Exploitation bureaucratic indifference, discrimination and social inequality.

OUR DAILY BREAD was first performed in 1986 by Eyewitness Theatre Company at the HALF MOON THEATRE in East London and has subsequently had over 1200 performances worldwide and been acclaimed with 8 international awards (including Edinburgh, New York and Hamburg) and was winner of the 1995 AMERICAN THEATRE  FESTIVAL in Orlando, Florida.

There’s a moral here – it’s never too late to think about polishing off those poems or dramatic dialogue and think about getting them published.

 

Sweet writers love the spring

It’s about this time of year that all those involved in publishing literary travails begin to get a little infected by the coming of Spring – and normally quote from a famous ode or sonnet to start their blog or marketing e-mail.

Well, we at i-Witness are going to be no exception so here’s a quote from the Bard (Sonnet 98, actually).

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April dress’d in all his trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d with him.

It often happens that Spring, and the coming of, is a time when the Muse may visit you more frequently and you set about tapping that cursor to produce something that you might hope to get published. If so you might consider sending us those words – especially if it’s poetry, because we don’t have enough poetry to consider. Not just poetry but, indeed any form of prose that stretches the definitions of writing – something that dares to be different.

Not just poetry of course. We have published quite a few plays. OUR DAILY BREAD is a play about child abuse that has had over 1200 performances worldwide but was never published. Recently updated, and still as fresh, passionate and relevant OUR DAILY BREAD provides an audacious exposé into the darker side of post- Brexit Britain. Pronounced by prominent press globally as ‘the perfect two-hander; poignant and powerful, funny and frightening’

OUR DAILY BREAD is still being performed thirty years after its premiere – and we are privileged to have been able to help get it published.

If you’re a writer or just starting out on that ‘long lonely journey’ you might consider contacting us, and we’ll send a free small guide on how to self-publish.