When young people with a liver condition go to university, they are often unsure of if, when and how to explain their situation to fellow students. Gemma (above right) , however, who has just graduated in Theatre and Performance Studies, decided to use her experience to inspire her final year dissertation, as she explains.
My dissertation partner Holly and I were both drawn to the idea of using drama to help people to build confidence, communication and compassion for one another. Holly doesn’t have a liver disease, but she does have a chronic condition, and we had both been struck by the depictions of illness in the media, which we felt didn’t always show the reality of having a long-standing condition- how monotonous, administrative and enduring it can be!
We wanted to explore how drama games and techniques could help to build confidence – and who better to work with than the young people supported by CLDF?!
I had been inspired by my own time during CLDF’s Talk Tell Transform week away in 2020, where I found that my creativity helped me to convey some really difficult parts of my liver journey. We wanted our young people to have that same experience where drama and play allowed them to access parts of themselves and channel that into the telling of ‘their story’.
So I approached Michelle and Louise at CLDF who happily believed in the project and put a shout out for young people who were interested in getting involved. We consider ourselves so fortunate that Leo, Millie-Mai and Rose came forward. They were absolutely the key to the whole success of the piece!
Our aim was to have four workshops using drama techniques and discussion to get them thinking about how they wanted to tell their story, with the final portion of the film involving recorded footage of these ‘stories’. We were hopeful that they would find the games fun and that they might enjoy spending time with us and one another, but what we weren’t expecting was how open and honest and trusting they were. They joined each Zoom session expecting to be led by us, but we certainly were led by them! Because of their voices, we were able to show that drama and the skills they developed during our sessions were helpful in allowing them to speak the truth of their liver story.
We were also keen to show that people with liver conditions are exceptional in their own ways, but also that they are normal people with interests and dreams just like anyone else. By talking about this, we felt that we were able to differently represent chronic illness in a more nuanced way which will hopefully allow other people with chronic illness to feel seen and heard.
It was great working with CLDF on this project. The mighty Louise and Michelle were our advisors and supporters. They sat in on each of the zoom sessions, contributing their thoughts and playing the games with us! They also were available during the zoom calls if any of the young people needed to step into a breakout room to chat through anything. In short, we could not have done it without them!
The recordings of each session were sent to Holly and me for editing as well as a final piece to camera of each of the young people talking about their experience of liver disease. We were blown away by their maturity and their ability to communicate about themselves and to each other.
Our documentary ‘The Coolest People Ever Talk About Livers’ was awarded a First which meant that Holly and I both graduated with a First Class Honours! And whilst it is our names on the certificate, we share the achievement with Leo, Millie-Mai, Rose, Louise and Michelle.
Although we came up with this whole idea for our dissertation, Holly and I could have done that experience over and over again- it was such a rewarding, fulfilling, joyous, thought-provoking, challenging, beautiful time. Because we both have chronic health conditions ourselves, we felt that, as much as the experience was for the young people, we felt quite healed during that time as well. Seeing three confident, articulate and resilient young people using their voices to talk about some very difficult stuff is beyond admirable. We felt that if we had watched the documentary at 15 and had seen those videos, we might not have felt so alone. They were just marvellous! We will miss working with them very, very much, but hope that it won’t be the last time!
Following graduation, Holly and I are both currently working in admin but looking for ways to keep flexing the creativity muscle. The goal is a career in community-based theatre or dramatherapy. So watch this space!
