I Love You, Mum - I Promise I Won't Die
A play by Mark Wheeller
About the play
In May 2014, just months after Dan died, the DSM Foundation commissioned award-winning playwright Mark Wheeller to write a verbatim play that told his story. The aim was to help other young people could learn the lessons he sadly no longer could, and make choices that would keep them safe. The title takes Dan’s joking last words to his mum, Fiona, before he left home for what turned out to be the last time: ‘I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die’.
Dan loved drama, and his drama teacher (Izzy Forrester, one of the first Trustees of the DSM Foundation) suggested approaching Mark as she had taught his plays for years, and witnessed the power of his writing on young people. The result is this moving piece of theatre, that captures so beautifully the joyful life and tragic death of Dan, and captivates audiences of all ages.
Mark worked on the very first production with his talented youth theatre company in Southampton, Oasis Youth Theatre, and the play had its first public performances in March 2016, with previews in Southampton and its premiere at the BRIT school, just a mile from Dan’s home in Croydon, South London.
The play was published by Bloomsbury (Methuen Drama) in 2017. Since then, it has been being studied, taught and performed in schools, colleges and community youth theatres across the UK – including at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it has attracted wonderful reviews – and as far away as Australia, Tasmania and Vancouver. In 2023, Octopus Dream Theatre undertook the first tour of professional theatres across England, performing the full published play and bringing Dan’s story to a wider audience than ever before.
There is a range of resources available for anyone working with the play, whether studying or performing it, which can be accessed here. Subject to availability, live performances can be booked with information available here and there are also filmed versions, more details on which are available here.
About Mark Wheeller
Mark has been writing successful plays since the 1980s, and writes powerfully for young people, using Theatre in Education to communicate about issues that affect them. His plays are extensively used in the drama curriculum in schools, due to him being a recommended playwright on the Edexcel GCSE drama syllabus for many years, and his 1987 work ‘Too Much Punch for Judy’ is one of the most performed contemporary plays in the UK.
For ‘I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die’ interviewed Dan’s family and friends and then used their actual words to produce the script of a two-act verbatim play. The process took 18 months, and involved working with the hugely talented and committed Oasis Youth Theatre. Early on, Mark commented that this was by far the best play he had written to date, partly because he felt the raw words he was given by all those involved, Dan’s family and friends, were so open, honest and eloquent.
Drama is an incredibly powerful way to communicate important messages to young people, and Mark Wheeller’s play has become a core part of the DSM Foundation’s vision to enable young people to understand the risks, and potential consequences and impact of experimenting with drugs. The final play, however, is as much about love, friendship, forgiveness and loss, as it is about drugs.
