For a second year, Royal Albert Hall Learning & Participation in partnership with Y Touring Theatre Company staged a week long theatre residency as part of National Science & Engineering Week and Brain Awareness Week 2011.
This year the play, Mind the Gap, examined ethical questions posed by advances in neuroscience by exploring the lives of three disparate people who find themselves stranded on the deserted platform of an underground station. Dino has pushed a girl in front of a passing tube train and his fractured psyche is soothed only by the drugs he takes and thoughts of escape; Vijay is the boyfriend left struggling with the trauma of the event and Maya is suffering from the onset of Alzheimers and is slowly descending into chaos.
This year one of the performances was filmed and screened in eight Picturehouse cinemas nationwide. Each screening was followed by a discussion with a leading scientist.
Cast
Karl Queensborough
Anni Domingo
Patrick Myles
Nathan Bryon
Writer Abi Bown
Director Nigel Townsend
Designer Jaimie Todd
Royal Albert Hall
Chief Executive Chris Cotton
Deputy Head of Learning & Participation Debra Cougill
Technical Show Manager James Hirst
Elgar Event Co-ordinator Anthony Clements
Development Funding Manager Jane Franklin
Learning & Participation Assistant Helen Badham
Y Touring
Chief Executive Rosi Prescott
Executive Director Nigel Townsend
General Manager Eleanor Lang
Tour Producer David Jackson
Associate Director, Participation Steven Byrne
Associate Director, Creative Learning Boris Witzenfeld
Movement Lyndsey Thomas
Mind the Gap was filmed and edited by See Thru Watch
The production has been developed in partnership with the Association of Medical Research Charities and funded by the Wellcome Trust, the Royal Albert Hall, Central YMCA and The Hobson Charity and is presented on screen in partnership with Picturehouse Cinemas and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA).
Y Touring is an award winning theatre company that truly get to the heart of the matter by engaging young people emotionally and intellectually with outstanding drama:
How do you catch and hold the attention of restless teenagers? How do you interest anyone in the convolutions of science? How you do make exciting drama that is enthralling to watch? How do you explain the ethical dilemmas that affect our daily lives? How do you do all this without boring people to death? The answer is – uniquely – Y Touring.
Baroness Joan Bakewell, 2010