A play about the challenges of living with ME will have its first performance at Cheltenham Playhouse next Tuesday – with ‘good availability' for seats still left.
YAWN! tells the story of a young woman who struggles to get help with a diagnosis. The performance – as part of the Gloucestershire town’s Fringe Festival – will take place at 5pm next Tuesday (27th May). Tickets cost £8 full price and £5 concessions.
Asking for local support on BBC Hereford and Worcester a couple of weeks ago, the show’s author Hollie Christian-Brookes, who has ME, quipped:
“It’s a great show – even if you have a chronic illness – because you can be home and in bed by 7.”
Hollie lives in Kidderminster. The play is based partly on her own experiences over the last two years.
Hollie told us: “ME has completely changed my life. I was a fit and healthy 29-year-old when I first became seriously unwell. Almost overnight everything came to a halt and it was an incredibly difficult time. I couldn’t work, see friends, or leave the house much. I felt extremely lost and alone.
“Getting a diagnosis and treatment was difficult, and though I got the help I needed eventually, I felt hugely let down by the state and our medical system. One of the hardest things has been facing the stigma associated with having a hidden disability, especially the disbelief in my condition from members of the public and, sometimes, medical professionals.
Photos show Chris Irvine and Hollie Christian-Brookes in rehearsal and TikTok influencer Oliver George.
“YAWN shines a light on these challenges. By dramatising the farcical nature of my own experiences, I hope the play will raise greater awareness of ME and, more generally, spotlight how hard living with an invisible illness can be.”
Hollie appears as ‘Young Woman’ in the hour-long play, alongside Christopher Irvine who becomes her mischievous brainworm.
Oliver George, who has almost 40,000 followers on TikTok, will play ‘The Voice of ME’.
He’ll guide the audience through the central challenge of play – how to make an invisible illness visible, while all the while sufferers are being dumped on by a huge list of fluctuating symptoms over which they have little control. Expect a firework or two!
In early publicity for the show, Oliver commented: “Hollie’s writing will relate to so many people feeling lost right now. This is what theatre is all about.”
At the end of the show, there will be a collection for the ME Association.
Tickets can be purchased directly from the theatre’s website: https://cheltplayhouse.org.uk/CheltPlayhouse.dll/WhatsOn?f=3921617
Follow yawn_play on Instagram for more information.
Tony Britton
Senior Fundraising Volunteer, The ME Association
tony.britton@meassociation.org.uk Mob: 07393 805566
