6 May 2018
StopWatch Theatre Company’s second professional tour of Mark Wheeller’s play about Dan, I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die, reaches its end as schools close for Easter, and for a second year it has had a huge impact on its audiences right across the length and breadth of London.
As many of you will know, the DSM Foundation commissioned award-winning playwright Mark Wheeller to write this verbatim play in the months after Dan died, as part of our vision to save young lives from harm. Its journey since then has seen it premiered at the BRIT School by Mark Wheeller’s Southampton-based youth theatre company Oasis Youth Theatre in March 2016, professionally toured across London by StopWatch Theatre Company in Spring 2017, published by Bloomsbury in February 2017, and now a second professional Theatre in Education tour has taken place during Spring term 2018.
Over ten weeks this talented cast of four young actors took their powerful and moving production into fifty-eight schools and colleges, as well as into Dan’s school church in Croydon, and will have performed the play that tells his story a total of eighty times to around 14,000 young people, parents, carers and professionals. Feedback has been so positive everywhere, across a really wide range of schools and communities:
“Both the performance and the workshop were outstanding – both informative and visually engaging.”
“The students were TOTALLY engaged and reacted to the humour and sadness in the play.”
“The learning points are really important for all young people. These were explored in an interactive and engaging format.”
“The audience responded extremely well, with some laughs and emotional responses around the tragedy. Some did cry, a few looked uncomfortable.”
