We’re really excited that from this September Mark Wheeller’s play that tells Dan’s story will start to be taught as one of seven set texts on the Eduqas GCSE drama syllabus, alongside Shakespeare, J.B. Priestly, Malorie Blackman and Benjamin Zephaniah. We really hope this will bring the play to many more drama studios and classrooms across the UK – and around the world – with its important messages of risk, choice and consequence, friendship and forgiveness, love and loss.
Dan’s mum Fiona said, “When we commissioned the play in those early, awful months after Dan died, I remember us saying how amazing it’d be if it became a GCSE set text, and we probably laughed because we never really, honestly imagined it would. We had no idea then just how far it would come, and in such a short time – only five years since it was published. Dan would be…I wonder what? Amazed? Amused? Embarrassed, but also a little in awe of what had been achieved? He’d certainly want to have done all he could to stop any harm happening to anyone else, which is what set us off down this path from the start.”
There are lots of different resources available for anyone working with the play in any way, anywhere, for any purpose, and we’ve put them all together on our website . There are videos, teaching resources, a new book from Mark Wheeller (out on 13 September), ‘The Story Behind…I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die’, Mark Wheeller (Salamander Street, 2022) and more. You can also order class sets of books direct from us, which brings funds into the DSM Foundation.
Have a rummage, and please get in touch if you’re studying or performing the play this term, because we’d love to know and to support you if we can.
