I Love You, Mum - I Promise I Won't Die (Plays for Young People)

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The purpose of this piece of work is clearly to honour Dan and ensure he is remembered for being a kind and loving popular boy rather than the headline "ecstasy teen death". It also serves as a very important warning to those experimenting with drugs how easily things can go wrong and I can see why it has had such success in schools. It was seven years ago this January that Dan came and found me before he headed off to a party, so he could give me a hug, tell me he loved me, and make the usual joke, promising he wouldn’t die. The next day we were in the liver intensive care unit at Kings, watching him do just that. Now these last words of Dan’s are the title of a play, that teenagers across the UK and around the world will be sitting in exam halls answering questions about. We are delighted to be touring the full-length version of this powerful and emotional story,” says Elliot Montgomery, Octopus Dream Theatre Artistic Director. That fateful evening is told through the words of his school friends and family, divided into two hard-hitting acts in Mark Wheeller’s verbatim play. A verbatim play written by Mark Wheeller using the testimonies of Daniel Spargo-Mabbs’ friends and family. Premiere performance at The BRIT School, Tuesday 29th March 2016

I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die was commissioned by the DSM Foundation to raise awareness about the danger of party drugs. It is a fast-paced, tragic, vibrant piece of verbatim theatre, which should engage teenage readers, audiences and performers alike. For anyone who recalls the 1990’s story of Leah Betts and the frankly devastating photograph of her splashed all over the newspaper Daniel is sadly the 21st century reminder that drugs still destroy lives and as members of society we still need to drum home the message but this time it isn’t with a headline life support photograph it’s in the form of this wonderful play – get it into your local community now! Don’t miss Mark Wheeller’s beautifully-written play and Octopus Dream’s acclaimed production, touring to theatres for the first time, following highly successful tours to secondary schools across the country.An abridged version has toured to many secondary schools across the country and has been seen by thousands of young people, but we always wanted to share the full version with a theatre audience. It’s an important, honest and deeply touching human story of how our choices can have such a huge impact on ourselves and our loved ones.” Workshops focus on informed decision making and risk awareness. They aim to leave no student in doubt that they always have a choice about the decisions they make and that the risks associated with illegal substance use can be incredibly high. They learn some facts that will help them make informed decisions and some tools to put their decisions into practice in a pressured situation. We deliver interactive drug and alcohol education workshops for students from Years 6-13, delivered by experienced drug educators. I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die is a verbatim play told through the words of Daniel’s family and friends. The play allows Dan’s story to be told by the people who loved him and knew him the best, his family and friends.

Susan Elkin paid a visit to Half Moon theatre in London’s East End to chat with CEO Chris Elwell about their extensive education outreach and innovative theatre programmes. Half Moon Theatre sits in the heart of Limehouse in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, spitting distance from the DLR and mainline station. Formerly a pretty […] National Youth Theatre Rep Company Normally when you watch a play the actual characters who are being ‘performed’ aren’t there. I was sitting in the same row as the people who were being re-created on stage and it was an unusual experience. Not only was this performance re-telling something very upsetting it was being re-told from over 300,000 words that all those audience members had said. The cast, from Oasis Youth Theatre worked as an amazing ensemble but stand out performances came from Lewis Evans and Natasha Thomas who took on the roles of Dan’s best friend and Dan’s mum respectively with such ease. Having Mark Wheeller’s interviewer words written into the script gives as a clever narration that helpfully shaped the dialogue into a narrative helping the audience follow the story. The set was simple with six cubes moved around at pace to create new scenes and also used in slow motion during the opening rave scene to great effect; flying around the stage with the chemical formula for MDMA projected upstage certainly marked the moment. The upstage screens also projected text message conversations and photographs of Dan throughout which disintegrated into flying sycamore seeds – symbolic of growing goodness from such sadness. Although the play revolves around Dan he has no lines and he is imaginatively represented throughout by a blue zip-hoodie that is sometimes worn by the 15-strong cast who play him in turn. Dan was the younger son of Fiona and Tim Spargo-Mabbs, living with them and his older brother Jacob in Croydon, South London. He was in Year 12 of Archbishop Tenison CE High School in Croydon, which he’d attended since Year 7. Dan was bright, articulate, funny, chatty, popular and talented; a big, engaging, much loved character as illustrated by him being voted Prom King at the end of year 11 by an overwhelming majority. He was embedded in his school community – playing in the band for the school show just before Christmas in year 12 – as well as his local and church communities, running errands for the elderly people to whom he delivered on his daily paper round, and involved in youth work at the church he attended with his family. He had a real social conscience, having recently signed up to the bone marrow donor register and becoming a member of Amnesty International.

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For ‘I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die’, Mark used verbatim theatre to take the actual words of Dan’s family and friends, recorded in a series of interviews, which were painstakingly transcribed and then turned into the script of this two-act play. He took eighteen months developing the script and performance with Oasis Youth Theatre, based in Southampton. Through his incredible skill, and the huge talent and commitment of the young people and team of Oasis Youth Theatre, these raw words were transformed into a stunning performance that brought the audience to tears at each of its performances. The tour is being supported by drug education charity The Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation. Commenting on the play and support for the tour, the Director & Founder – and Dan’s mum - Fiona Spargo-Mabbs OBE, said: This is such an exciting development for us as a drug education charity, and also as Dan’s mum and dad. We commissioned Mark Wheeller to turn Dan’s story into a play as part of our passionate commitment when Dan died to prevent any harm happening to anyone else’s family from drugs. This first tour to theatres is taking the play to a whole new audience outside schools, where it’s been touring for the last few years. We really hope this will mean families will come together and have conversations at home that help other teenagers keep themselves safe - but it’s also a beautiful play and a fantastic production, creating an opportunity for anyone who loves great theatre to experience it, and to get to know our Dan.” I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die is approved set text for the EDUQAS GCSE Drama (component 3) An important and often overlooked route into the industry, especially for many non-performing roles. Susan Elkin has some suggestions. Theatre is like an iceberg. For every role on stage there are probably at least half a dozen technicians you can’t see. And the industry has been telling us for decades that there are skills shortages […] School Shows

In January 2014 16-year-old Daniel Spargo-Mabbs went to an illicit all-night rave, overdosed on ecstasy and died. Daniel was intelligent, funny, given to moments of wild clowning, but essentially serious, a member of Amnesty International and devoted to other charitable work. A hugely popular figure, he was not the sort of boy you expect this to happen to. is a Yorkshire-based touring theatre company which was borne out of the work of our founder company TiE It Up Theatre, which specialises in taking professionally-made drama into secondary schools. Dan’s mum Fiona said, “When we commissioned the play in those early, awful months after Dan died, I remember us saying how amazing it’d be if it became a GCSE set text, and we probably laughed because we never really, honestly imagined it would. We had no idea then just how far it would come, and in such a short time – only five years since it was published. Dan would be…I wonder what? Amazed? Amused? Embarrassed, but also a little in awe of what had been achieved? He’d certainly want to have done all he could to stop any harm happening to anyone else, which is what set us off down this path from the start.” Neither play text nor production overplays the drama. It’s all there in the controlled, understated performances and the poignancy of the filmed interviews. Dan is cool, clever and smart. A talented, creative “lovely boy” with a passion for helping others who’s always on the side of the underdog. Everyone loves Dan and at 16, he has plans, plenty of them - just losing his life isn't one of them.

In July 2016 the DSM Foundation commissioned Mark Wheeller to adapt ‘I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die’, to take into schools, colleges and the community as a Theatre in Education tour. From Spring term 2017 and for the following three spring terms, Stopwatch Theatre with a cast of four professional actors took performances of the play, followed by interactive drug and alcohol education workshops, into schools across London. In spring 2020 this powerful production was taken on by Wizard Theatre, following the closure of Stopwatch, and by the end of the tour reached more than 50,000 young people, as well as parents, carers and professionals at public performances. Post show Q & A: After the performance on Friday 16 June, the cast will be joined on stage by Fiona & Tim Spargo-Mabbs, Dan’s parents and founders of the Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation drug education charity. Along with questions to the cast, Fiona & Tim will take questions about the play, their son Dan and the important work of their drug education charity the DSM Foundation, which has been instrumental in changing the landscape around drug education across the UK. This event is open to all who have attended that evening’s performance. Ben Glasstone’s charming, witty account of The Emperor Who Has No Clothes works well for two main reasons. First it is one of the most perceptive stories ever written, dealing as it does with vanity, self delusion, conformity and truth. It’s both topical and timeless. Second, we have a cost of living crisis and the […] Book Review – Activist

The filmed version of ‘I Love You, Mum..’ aired on the Edinburgh Fringe Player in 2021 and received critical acclaim: I Love You Mum, I Promise I Won't Die is a beautiful and deeply touching tribute to a much-loved boy. Dan is cool, clever and smart. A talented, creative and “lovely boy” with a passion for helping others who’s always on the side of the underdog. Everyone loves Dan and at 16, he has plans, plenty of them - just losing his life isn’t one of them.This DVD shows the original 2016 OYT production as premiered at the Brit School, directed by author, Mark Wheeller. Broadway World “ I Love You Mum, I Promise I Won't Die is a beautiful and deeply touching tribute to a much-loved boy” Elliot Montgomery’s production for Octopus Dream Theatre is powerful, poignant and intensely moving, from the boisterous roistering of the early stages to a quiet stillness that overwhelms the audience. The play is topped and tailed by filmed interviews with Dan’s mother and father and his girlfriend Jenna, communicating the love he inspired. Then the first half consists of wild dancing separating out the verbatim interviews with Mark Wheeller. David Chafer (Mark) is perfectly hesitant as he explores Dan’s life from Year 7 onwards with his friends.