Ears Against Loneliness
‘Ears Against Loneliness’ was our first stab at a social movement campaign – and we’re pretty proud of what we achieved!
Over several weeks, members of The Johnny Barlow Theatre Company and students from Tameside Health & Wellbeing College came together to create a new piece of forum theatre exploring the challenges and triumphs of attempting to combat loneliness through listening.
The show tells the story of Jenny, a care in the community type of person who is desperate to put on a meeting about loneliness. However, the problem is that nobody is listening, nobody wants to talk about loneliness, nobody wants to identify as being lonely.
Ready to give up, Jenny starts to pack her things until suddenly one person appears, a kind of ‘genie’ character who magically makes lots of things appear to help her tackle loneliness – a logo for her social movement, a poster even a mascot!
People start listening as the onstage participants, using their own experiences as inspiration, openly share their experiences of loneliness. As is the case with all of our productions, the audience actively participate in the performance also, sharing their opinions and experiences of loneliness in their communities and how they can help improve this through donating active listening.