The tool we used was simple. A line drawn across the page and plotted with events or experiences. But simple doesn’t mean ineffective. Looking at the things we choose to put down and the emotions and words that surround them tell a great deal about what sticks in our minds and what we focus on.

Mixing storytelling with neuroscience, we worked through exercises that explored names and labels, habits and attitudes, events and experiences. Like directors, we reviewed the script that we live by every day. As editors we explored what to keep and what to drop. Like designers we storyboarded a plan for the next chapter.  There’s also wider practical applications. The tool can be used to map out a presentation and selecting the most important messages to be taken. Seeing the plot of a book and charting the emotional ups and downs within it shows how the reader might experience it – and whether more or less drama is needed.

Stories are ultimately about connection – connection with others and ourselves. Through the words we use and the framework we place them in those connections can be more empowering, strengthening and enlivening. Seeing where we have been can help us work out where we are going – and if it’s the destination that we want. It’s all about knowing the kind of story you are telling and exploring whose story it is – your story. All from a line on a page.

Released on 20th January 2017, all proceeds from the sale of the single via Bandcamp will go to the grass roots charity group Phone Credit for Refugees and Displaced People. They work to help keep a vital mobile phone lifeline open for refugees desperate to connect with families and to access important services and information.

As Ros and Vas explain ‘We hope our song helps make a difference by raising much needed funds. We chose Phone Credit for Refugees after meeting our Labour MP Stella Creasy at Walthamstow feminist bootcamp and she put us in touch with people who knew this fantastic volunteer group. You can see where your money is going and you are directly helping people to access important services and information and to stay connected to their families.’

The duo wholeheartedly belief in the value of music and the arts for making change. ‘We come from Greek and Scottish/Irish backgrounds and our music stands against the growing tide of suspicion and intolerance. We decided in 2013 that we had to use any skills or talent we had as musicians, as songwriters, as a band to question and challenge, to show what we stood for. Otherwise your music ultimately says everything is fine and acceptable. We also think we can help change our culture by being creative and making our own culture rather than just passively consuming it. This leads to a real communication between artists and people in different countries.’

They’ve previously contributed to the #moreincommon album in aid of Hope Not Hate, and found ‘a growing sense of horror ‘ through the experience of seeing our world fall apart in some ways, but know that ‘we have to wake up and act now to ensure our silence is not taken as acquiescence.’

But we have to finish our chat. They have to rush off and pick up their makeshift drums ready to bang outside Downing Street in protest against the UK government’s apparent complicity with Trump’s immigration policy and terrifying populist extremism. No silence here. ‘There is a time for songs and a time to take to the streets.’

We can make a noise too, helping the most vulnerable speak simple words of reassurance to loved ones, by buying Time to Mourn/From Fear to Fury here and see them live on March 18^th at the LOUD WOMEN Volume 1: Album Launch Party, with all profits going to Women’s Aid.

First published on Joyzine

The story of a London teenager who finds that suddenly and inexplicably she has become an alien in her own country. Shala Nyx plays five versions of the same girl, after finding out that her world has changed, and she has no house, no home, and what feels like no hope. To start with she’s a familiar teenager on her mobile phone, worried about boys and shoes and arguing with her mum. But then things change, and we move to the stages of discovering that your world is falling down, needing to flee, travelling and being ‘processed’ – quite literally as a number.

As her image and accent shifts from Londoner to Arabic to Scottish, it’s startling how differently the situation portrayed appears. What seems unthinkable becomes a potential reality; what seems incomprehensible becomes identifiable. Terraced houses and bombed shelters all mingle, and the audience does feel a sense of collective identity, even from the safety of this beautiful venue. Although shooting and shadows replace loud music and youthful vigour for all, it may well be hardest for females. We see the girl forces and degraded in order to access basic needs, and ‘be less than I am.’ Independence and identity are irrelevant, and shame and judgement pervade.

Director Dominic Hingorani and designer and illustrator Rachana Jadhav have used the resources well, and Nyx risen to the challenge. Doors open and close and the screen action reaches into the live. In one poignant moment the familiar streets become coated in blood, and when in a café and call centre, being lured to finding a sense of belonging once again freedom fighting group the scene is surrounded by sinister tentacles. When so much has happened, for soldiers and refugees, the need to survive outweighs ideals, and some ‘turn on my truth.’

Half Moon is local venue that supports and provides for young people in the community, and the performance of her an important one to show. Engaging the audience and showing a hint of the struggle that some go through, whilst also capturing their attention and provoking debate is hugely important – for all generations. After every show there’s a question and answer session with the cast and team, as well as a day of workshops planned. Whilst I’m not sure that I could say I enjoyed her, I did absolutely love it. Creative activism certainly has a role to play in influencing  the future, and her is a wonderful step towards that change.

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Running until May 21st 2016

It’s the first time Charlotte Keatley’s play has been performed in London in 25 years, but this production of My Mother Said I Never Should, produced by Tiny Fires and running at St James Theatre, suggests that the capital has been waiting that long. It’s easy  to see why the National Theatre ranked it as one of the most significant plays of the twentieth century in 2000, and despite it being the most performed play ever written by a female playwright, Paul Robinson’s direction and Tara Finley’s production keeps it fresh.

The family drama spans 1940 to 1987 and four generations of women, and explores not only the personal dynamics at play, but those of society and its effect work, marriage and motherhood.

The plot is simple – we have Doris, born in Oldham in 1900, her daughter, Margaret who inherits some of her work and duty values but is some more freedom, her daughter, Jackie, who has an unplanned pregnancy in 1969, and hands her baby daughter, Rosie, to her mother to bring up as her own. But as all mother and daughter relationships, the reality is all the more complex. The ways in which they mirror one another, even whilst trying to break away, are clear, and we see repeated a longing to be different coexisting with a desire to connect.

Of course things have changed and female freedoms extended and opportunities grown. There’s a sense of movement for the women – at one point Margaret says to Jackie ‘You’ve got to go further than me – otherwise, what’s it been worth?’ – but at the same time it’s very clear that much has stayed the same, particularly when it comes to the bonds and family dynamics. She herself made a similar assertion as young woman, declaring, ‘Well I’m going to be different! Women did so much during the war: there’s nothing stopping us now.’  Men are never physically present, but always casting a shadow, whether as husbands, fathers or bosses. However, rather than a play about women and men, this feels like more of a play about mothers and daughters.

Much of this is down to the convincing familial dynamics between the cast. Doris Lipman is superb as Maureen, showing grit, humour and strength of character even as she is constrained by conventions. Katie Brayben, Olivier Award winner last year for her performance as Carole King in Beautiful, plays Jackie, and manages to portray a wild child of the sixties to a mother parted from her daughter and the complexities of changing emotions and relationships. Serena Manteghi is vibrant and animated as the youngest character, and it’s touching to see her grow.  Huge congratulations and respect also has to go to Hilary Jones, who stepped in at the last moment to play Margaret due to Caroline Faber having to step down – this performance was the first configuration of the cast, and only the second time they had met.

Signe Beckman’s set design is sparse, with flickering television screens setting up the context of the time without overpowering the individual stories. Interspersed with movement through the decades are flashbacks, such as from Doris to 1923 when Jack proposed, and waste ground scenes where all four become children again, playing together and casting spells. There’s simple repeated motifs, such as the movement from ‘mummy’ to ‘mum’ to ‘mother’ to a first name, and the solitaire board that becomes a metaphor for winning at life by being an individual.

There’s no formula. The relationships between mother and daughter are delicate. Margaret says at one point that ‘You do what’s best for your daughter, and you find out it’s not what she wanted, or needed’ – a thought millions of mothers have had. But still the bond is there. The scene where the family sort Doris’ late husband’s house provides a particularly lovely lens through which to explore the relationships of the four women together.

Whilst watching My Mother Said I Never Should, I wished that my own mummy was there. I wanted to share the moments with her. This feels like high praise.