Breathless

Product Information

Happy Meal, the theatre’s co-production with Roots, has recently been part of the Sydney Festival line-up and then moved on to the Perth Festival in Australia.

As she loads up her bags, she never needs to use the changing rooms; whether the clothes fit is not really the point. This new innovative direction will ensure TRP is fully orientated to meet the needs of artists, audiences, and those who take part, but mostly about creativity.Every purchase feeds an image she has of herself as she hurtles towards 40 with no real sense of identity or direction.

To reveal a tiny snatch about myself, I had the sheer joy of performing with the Contemporary Dance Company, ‘Dancers Anonymous’ up at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival back in 1978-1980. I wanted to show the breadth of how much theatre positively impacts people, but not just through shows through community work and engagement which doesn’t often get much attention. And I think that’s probably right, you know giving people one off opportunities, and then not giving them anything else, and there’s no sustainability in that.You can see her range clearly when she regularly steps into the multiple supporting characters, and in fact she seems much more comfortable when she’s playing the slightly lumbering, androgynous love-interest Jo. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I think perhaps an actress with genuine OCD concerns herself might have pulled off the part better. Plesance Theatre Trust and Theatre Royal Plymouth are delighted to bring Breathless by Laura Horton, Plymouth Laureate of Words, to Theatre Royal Plymouth and Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Then there was a meeting at the Theatre Royal Plymouth and they decided to provide the funding themselves, for me to produce the show.

Meeting and dating Jo has been transformative, but when she looks at any of the clothes that pack her flat, memories flood over her.

She notes with horror that Jo’s place contains little more than three pairs of shoes and an old school tie, a level of minimalism she fears will tear them apart. I’ve worked for many years as a publicist and love amplifying the work of others, but it feels so exciting to be following my own dreams and presenting my own work this year. This humanises hoarding and is a reminder that it can be far less severe than the cases that make it onto telly documentaries. Like all great theatre you cannot see the workings of this production, only the highly polished whole, but clearly a talented team of creative women have joined together to consider all aspects of this near-perfect piece. Though a particular event pushes Sophie into realising she has a problem, the process of acceptance and giving away her clothes is long and slow.

Her reality is a slow descent into mental ill health fuelled by anxiety, lack of confidence and repression of her true self. I had a few panicked moments, but once I got into it, it was lovely to realise these clothes would be worn, would have new life.I really need to get someone else on board, but obviously I can’t afford to pay anyone, so it’s a bit of a difficult one, but it’s still there and it’s not something that I want to give up on. I got Arts Council funding for this on my fifth attempt after a year and a half of applying which has now run out, so I turned it into a CIC, but I just don’t have time to try and get funding for it.