Hard Hitting Drama Comes to Northallerton School

Year 9 students were given the opportunity to experience an incredibly moving and powerful piece of theatre as the professional drama group, Tie It Up Theatre, visited on March 2nd. The four-strong team of actors performed Mark Wheeller’s play, ‘I Love You Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die’, to the whole year group.

The play was initially commissioned by a drug education charity. It tells the true story of Dan, a popular 16-year-old schoolboy from South London, who attended an illegal rave in January 2014, took MDMA (ecstasy), and tragically died as a result of taking a lethal dose. The play uses the words of real friends and family members who were close to the tragedy.

Following the performance, the actors ran an interactive workshop to raise awareness about issues surrounding this important topic. An additional performance of the play was also staged in the evening so that other students and members of the community could experience the presentation.

One of the Year 9 students, Sophie, said that the play was an ‘emotional rollercoaster’. Her classmate, Esme, agreed that it was ‘deep’ and that the family relationships portrayed ‘really made you realise that you shouldn’t take things for granted’.

The atmosphere in the hall was incredibly still and pensive leading the performers to comment on just how seriously the students were taking this challenging and vital topic; indeed they described their Year 9 audience as ‘wonderful’.