What was it?
Blood and Water was a 5 week long MAGNIFY project in HMP Springhill, working with ten prisoners in collaboration with The Royal Court Theatre, to devise a play exploring fatherhood. It was performed in prison to the prison community and at the Royal Court to an invited audience.
Cast Feedback
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You have helped me step outside my comfort zone and given me confidence in myself. Working alongside a professional director has given me experience and insight into professional directing, better people skills and how to respect people in a professional environment. Thank you for picking me up and making me feel bigger than myself. I hope you continue changing people’s lives in the way you have changed mine.
Charlie
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It is amazing what a group of men who are prisoners, who are constantly made to feel they are worthless, bad and a danger to the world, can achieve when dedicated professionals place their confidence and trust in them. …I’ve seen a dyslexic man excel at directing, and another organize rehearsals in his own time, supporting others to learn scripts and access their inner actor. I’ve seen a disparate group of men remove the mask and come together as a team, a family and work together to achieve a resounding success. Thank you for having faith in me personally and us collectively, in helping, encouraging, teaching and leading us to a once in a lifetime performance of our play at The Royal Court in London.
Darel
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We have all changed through this unique experience. It gave me the chance to be me, not just a hardened criminal. I could show there is more to me than my past. A fantastic and captivating journey we will never forget.
Terry
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It has been the highlight of my prison sentence and I’ll remember it forever.
Matty
Listen
Listen to the men involved in the project give their feedback.
Royal Court Audience Feedback
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It was a wonderfully powerful performance, at times hilarious but also very moving, especially the Amazing Grace singing.
John Lister, Prison Education Trust
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It really was superb. The standard of the writing and acting was absolutely first-class. You wouldn’t have known it wasn’t a professional production. It was very heartening, too, to hear the cast members afterwards saying what a difference Kestrel had made to their lives in prison.
James Rampton
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Thank you and the Company for such a fine play and bringing out the talent and confidence of the cast. I was interested to hear comments that the actors felt the workshops and the play allowed them to be ‘real’ and released them from the pressures of being inmates/ being tough/wearing a mask…. They all said they had discovered abilities and skills they did not know they had!
Hilden Charitable Trust
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Really outstanding. One of the benefits of theatre is surely to get the idea that behaviours are optional – you could behave like the brother or the loan shark or the godfather but behaviours need to be chosen with some care…. Really wonderful to have the Royal Court endorsing it.
Diana Parker