Directed by Clean Break’s Joint Artistic Director Róisín McBrinn (Afterplay, Sheffield Theatres) full casting includes Helen Cripps (Women Beware Women, Shakespeare’s Globe), Lucy Edkins ([BLANK], Donmar Warehouse), Lucy Ellinson (Run Sister Run, Sheffield Theatres), Eddy Queens (Through This Mist, Clean Break), Alison Fitzjohn (Take That’s – The Band Musical, UK Tour), Lara Grace Ilori (Living Newspaper Edition 6, Royal Court) and Carrie Rock (Julius Caesar, Donmar Warehouse/St Ann's Warehouse, New York).
“This is punk. This is rebellion. This is how we make change. This is what we need to do.”
From writer Morgan Lloyd Malcolm (Emilia) and featuring the music of influential all-female punk band, The Slits, Typical Girls is part gig, part play and is funny, fierce and furious.
In a specialised unit inside a prison, a group of women discover the music of punk rock band The Slits and form their own group. An outlet for their frustration, they find remedy in revolution. But in a system that suffocates, can rebellion ever be allowed?
Róisín McBrinn, Joint Artistic Director of Clean Break: “We’re over the moon to be co-producing this raucous, explosive show! Morgan’s script is electric, and we have a stellar creative team and hugely exciting cast. Clean Break is so proud to be returning with this joyous, important play and to be exploding it onto the beautiful Crucible stage!”
Robert Hastie, Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres: “We couldn’t be more excited to be producing such a bold, riotous new play with a company as inspiring as Clean Break, and can’t wait to welcome this brilliant cast and creative team into the rehearsal room.”
Returning to the Crucible are Lucy Ellinson, following her starring role in Run Sister Run in 2020; and Róisín McBrinn, after directing the 2014 production Afterplay by Brian Friel.
Typical Girls will be at the Crucible Theatre from 24 September to 16 October with the performance on 6 October live-streamed and available to watch online. Tickets will be available from sheffieldtheatres.co.uk
Creative Team
Writer Morgan Lloyd Malcolm
Director Róisín McBrinn
Musical Director Rosie Bergonzi
Casting Director Nadine Rennie CDG
Assistant Director Aaliyah Mckay
Designer Kat Heath
Lighting Designer Katy Morrison
Associate Lighting Designer Rachel Cleary
Sound Designer Beth Duke
Movement Director Chi San Howard
Music Director Mentor Yshani Perinpanayagam
Line Producer 45 North
Featuring the music of The Slits
'I am a theatre’ celebrates four decades of Clean Break creating groundbreaking theatre on women’s experience of the criminal justice system. Incorporating previously unseen archival material, it traces the origins of Clean Break from two women who met in HMP Durham’s high security ‘H-Wing’ in 1977, to setting up a drama workshop for women inside HMP Askham Grange, and establishing Clean Break after release in 1979 as a ‘women prisoners theatre’.
Since then, Clean Break has staged over 100 original plays that shine a light on the hidden lives of women caught up in the criminal justice system. With original scripts, artwork and photography, I am a theatre traces the remarkable story of a company whose story encompasses over 40 years of radical theatre, feminism and justice in the UK.
Watch the exhibition tour video documenting how it was made, and including interviews with the designers and Exhibition Guides here:
We are delighted to announce our autumn 2021 show, a Clean Break and Sheffield Theatres co-production, Typical Girls by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, directed by Róisín McBrinn.
A new punk musical play set in a mental health unit inside a prison, a group of women discover the music of punk rock band The Slits and form their own group. An outlet for their frustration, they find remedy in revolution. But in a system that suffocates, can rebellion ever be allowed?
Part-gig, part-play, Typical Girls is funny, fierce and furious.
Beginning the new season in the Crucible, Typical Girls runs from Friday 24 September – Saturday 16 October 2021.
Robert Hastie, Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres said:
‘’We kick off with the world premiere of a new play by one of the UK’s most remarkable writers. For Typical Girls, by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, we’re thrilled to be working with the fantastic company Clean Break. Part gig, part-play this riotous new show sees a group of women light up through their journey into punk rock."
Morgan Lloyd Malcolm is the writer behind The Globe hit Emilia which transferred to the West End in 2019. She has written a number of plays for Hampstead Theatre, The Old Vic, Lyric Hammersmith, Firehouse Productions and Clean Break.
Her new play Mum will premiere at Soho Theatre this autumn. Current screen work includes an original treatment for Gaumont, an untitled book adaptation for Gaumont/Moonage and two episodes of a comedy drama for Merman Films. She is also under commission to adapt both Emilia and The Wasp as feature films.
This production was originally co-commissioned by Clean Break with the Royal Shakespeare Company who also contributed to its early development.
Tickets are on sale from 17 July 2021.
To find out more information on our current productions click here.
We have adopted the Anti Racism Rider as an important statement of intent and will work with colleagues from across the industry to implement this. As a working company, we have made a commitment over the next 2 years to meet the baseline actions of the rider.
This commitment is in addition to our current Anti-Racism Consultancy as we move towards being an anti-racist organisation.
Download the Anti-Racism Touring Rider Download the Anti-Racism Touring Checklist
Download the Anti- Racism Touring Rider in large print
Download the Anti-Racism Touring Checklist in large print
Dowload the Anti-Racism Touring Ride Easy Read
Dowload the Anti-Racism Touring Rider for screen readers
View the Anti-Racsim Touring Rider in BSL
Clean Break celebrates four decades of creating ground-breaking theatre on women’s experience of the criminal justice system with its retrospective exhibition ‘I am a theatre’: 40 years of Clean Break Theatre Company.
Jacqueline Holborough and Jennifer Hicks, Co-Founders of Clean Break: “We were dreaming big in 1979, but in our wildest dreams and furthest travels we could not have envisaged the brilliant organisation that Clean Break has become thanks to the talent, love and sheer determination of so many magnificent women.”
The live exhibition takes place at Swiss Cottage Gallery from 24 June - 31 July 2021, with Covid-secure measures in line with the latest government guidelines. It features:
Alison Frater, Chair of Clean Break: "Since the beginning, Clean Break's advocacy through theatre and Member support has highlighted the policy perversity of imprisoning women - influencing a consensus by successive governments to reduce the rate of incarceration. The announcement of 500 new prison places for women, taking money from much needed community services and the failure to introduce measures to reduce violence against women and girls (yet removing the right to protest) in the draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, demonstrates that its work is still very much needed."
The exhibition has been curated by Claire Stone, Heritage Project Manager at Clean Break, and is co-designed by Miriam Nabarro and Liz Whitbread. Miriam Nabarro is a visual artist and scenographer with 25 years’ experience in socially engaged and participatory settings, both locally and internationally. Liz Whitbread is a Member of Clean Break who joined in 2012 and graduated in 2019 from Wimbledon UAL in Theatre Design. Their previous collaboration on a mobile exhibition inspired by the archive toured the UK alongside 2019’s Sweatbox, set inside a prison van, and has been re-imagined as an installation for this exhibition.
This exhibition is made possible by support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts and Humanities Research Council. This funding was received to celebrate Clean Break's 40th anniversary year, to document our heritage by: establishing a publicly accessible archive of our work at the Bishopsgate Institute; conducting oral history interviews; creating a digital timeline and exhibitions to share its story.
On 23 January the government announced its plans to build 500 new prison places for women. We joined Women in Prison and our partner organisations to write a letter condeming the plans.
We are now joining Women in Prison's campaign #StopThe500 to take a stand against the places.
The government plans fly in the face of their own strategy which says that most women in prison do not need to be there.
We know that there is another way, one that the Government knows works. We can invest in community-based services that support women to tackle the issues that sweep them into crime in the first place, like domestic abuse and poverty.
Together, we can #StopThe500 and ensure the Government does what's right for women, their children and our communities.
You too can add your voice to #StopThe500 new prison places for women.
JOIN THE CAMPAIGN
After a year of online engagement, we are thrilled to announce a season of live and digital events celebrating and reconnecting our community of Members, artists and audiences. From May, you'll have the opportunity to experience our plays through audio and film, an exhibition and digital timeline sharing our legacy, and live theatre in person
Blis-ta by Sonya Hale
Audio drama available from 18 May, on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher and Soundcloud.
Kat and Cherry meet on the streets. Kat is wily, funny, and fierce; Cherry is a lost dreamer. Blis-ta is the story of their adventures to survive as homeless girls and the transformative power of friendship.
Written by the late Sonya Hale, a Clean Break Member, this audio drama is a wild tale of resilience, hidden homelessness, the lengths women go to for survival. Blis-ta is directed by Róisín McBrinn, Joint Artistic Director for Clean Break, performed by Ambreen Razia and Ria Zmitrowicz, sound design by Helen Skiera and dramaturgy by Gillian Greer, with an introduction by Clean Break Patron, Lucy Kirkwood.
Book now for our panel event Women's homelessness: the issues, the solutions and the art
Find out more..png "Sweatbox")
Sweatbox by Chloë Moss
Film streaming for free on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram from 8 June.
Three women sit in a prison van outside HMP Bronzefield, each caught up in their own worlds as they anticipate what’s next. Sweatbox offers a glimpse into the experience of women as they are pulled away from their lives and transported to prison.
Chloë Moss’s highly original Clean Break play has toured the UK in a prison van since its premiere at the Latitude Festival in 2015. It is transformed into an electric adaptation for the screen, performed by Clean Break Members Funke Adeleke, Jade Small and Posy Sterling with Sarah Jane Dent as the Prison Officer.
Book now for our online screening and panel discussion.
Find out more.
I am a theatre
at Swiss Cottage Gallery, 24 June – 31 July.
This exhibition celebrates Clean Break's 40-year history as a radical theatre company, documenting its heritage through previously unseen archival material and specially commissioned interviews and installations.
The 40-year retrospective will be co-designed by Miriam Nabarro and Liz Whitbread, a designer and Member of Clean Break. It will take place at Swiss Cottage Gallery in Camden—Clean Break’s home borough since the 1980s.
Alongside the exhibition, we will be launching a digital timeline on our website and an events programme of digital and live activity including a screening of the 1984 Channel 4 production of Clean Break co-founder Jacqueline Holborough’s play, Killers.
Booking will open on Wednesday 12 May.
Find out more.
Through This Mist
at Clean Break, limited run from 15 – 17 July.
As the world was in the grip of loss and loneliness last summer, Clean Break commissioned a group of leading female artists and Clean Break Members through its 2 Metres Apart project, bringing them together to take solace in collaboration and creativity. Through This Mist shares some of the outcomes of those unions and the beginning of a return to live performance.
Performed outside in Clean Break’s garden, this live performance features work created collaboratively by: Ayesha Antoine and Yvonne Wickham, Katherine Chandler and Nicole Hall, Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and TerriAnn Cousins, and Chloë Moss and Sarah-Jane Dent. It also features a song by Eddy Emenike and a short film by Deborah Bruce and Sarah Cowan, screened inside as part of this event.
Spaces are limited for the performance.
Book now.
Voices from Prison
Across women's prisons.
Over the last year women in prison have become more invisible than ever. During lockdown women in prison have been locked in cells for up to 23 hours a day with visitation and education programmes suspended.
Voices from Prison is a creative writing project inviting women from all 12 women’s prisons to create work in this moment, amplify their words and let their experiences be heard.
Inspired by a project of the same name from 1987 uncovered in our archive, a panel will be selecting pieces to be published and performed by a cast of actors and Member artists at an online event and on all our channels.
Book now for our celebration event.
In May, we will be launching the second year of the Helen Pringle Award, an annual award in memory of our dearest friend and colleague, Helen Pringle, who died four years ago, after living with cancer for a number of years. Each year the award offers a £1,000 bursary to support a Member in her Further /Higher Education studies and a mentorship by one of Clean Break’s artistic community.
Find out more.
Members Programme and Women’s Centres
Our Members Programme will continue online over the summer. Our artists will be providing a foundation of learning and skills in theatre performance, creativity and wellbeing as well as one-off masterclasses and events.
We will also be working with our partners at Advance Minerva and Women in Prison to provide workshops to women accessing Women’s Centres over London.
Barbara was an extraordinary woman whose legacy will live on in the organisations she championed, such as Clean Break and the International Women’s Forum which she co-founded, and in the women she mentored and inspired throughout her life. I was lucky enough to be one of these women and it is a great pleasure to share something of Barbara’s life history and why Clean Break was so close to her heart.
Barbara grew up in Cornwall in a farming family. By her own account, she didn’t have an easy childhood although her mother kindled her early interest in music, which became a lifelong passion. Her promising education was cut short at 16 in order to support her family as a typist when the family farm went bankrupt. She clearly had a strong sense of adventure and self-belief because at 21 she left Cornwall for London, working briefly on a magazine and then taking a women’s adult education course at Hillcroft College, where Clean Break used to work in partnership. Following three years in Tanganyika working for a copper mine – the first of many all-male environments where she found herself – Barbara returned to London to pursue a career in politics and the media. She became an Islington Councillor but decided against standing as an MP when she realised that she would have to compromise on her own principles – in this case, her support for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Instead she joined the Civil Service as a press officer and went on to work with Labour PM Harold Wilson, unusually staying on to serve under Ted Heath when the Conservative Party came into power, drafting speeches and accompanying him on major political visits. Later in her career she was controller of information services at the Independent Broadcasting Authority, helped to set up breakfast television and was a non-executive director at Westcountry Television.
Throughout Barbara’s life she championed women’s rights: creating networks of women across national and sectarian divides, playing a leading role in the 300 group to secure the election of more female MPs, and pursuing equal pay for women. These activities and her evident self-belief meant she fast became a powerful and compelling role model for other women. This continued right through to her final decade when she came out as a lesbian and wrote and published her memoirs Exceeding My Brief: Memoirs of a Disobedient Civil Servant.
Around this time, Barbara joined us in the Clean Break building to celebrate her 90th birthday. In typical Clean Break style, we had tea and cakes with company Members and staff. She regaled us all with stories of her life and offered advice and encouragement on how we, too, could seize opportunities and live life to the full. It was a joyful occasion peppered with jokes and anecdotes. We all absorbed some of Barbara’s wisdom that day and were inspired by her infectious sense of self-belief and can do attitude.
This is what I loved about Barbara - she made you feel like anything is possible and that no barrier is too big to overcome. I first met her when I joined Clean Break in the late 1990s when we were about to start renovating our new home in Patshull Road, Kentish Town. She had joined the company in the early 1990s as one of a stellar group of Patrons, whom then Director Alex Ford had brought on board to help fundraise for and find our new base. Instrumental in the evolution of Patshull Road, I suspect she was also key to growing the company’s ambition and stretching our horizons way beyond the wildest dreams of the company’s founders Jacqueline Holborough and Jenny Hicks.
The company’s development gave Barbara enormous pleasure; she sent me an email in 2016, “When I remember my first days with Clean Break – a rehearsal space not much bigger than a cupboard I marvel at how far we have come.” But although the building came to embody much of the company’s ambitions, it was the women we worked with and their journeys that connected Clean Break to Barbara.
I last saw Barbara, pre-pandemic, at the Reform Club together with her longstanding partner Margaret Hyde – another good friend and supporter of Clean Break. As usual, she introduced me to many people over lunch – she was always a great connector – and we then had a tour of this venerable old institution. It was founded with radical beginnings and, in 1981, became the first of the traditional gentleman’s clubs to allow women to become members on equal terms. Barbara took us up to the top of the building and into a small art gallery. Here she proudly shared some of her own paintings displayed amongst the artworks – new pieces from weekly art classes that she had taken up in recent years. This was typical Barbara – telling us that you are never too old to learn something new and to share your creativity with friends.
It goes without saying that Barbara will be much missed by us all. Her spirit and love of life and ambition for women will be an enduring legacy.
Lucy Perman, Former Chief Executive Clean Break
More than £300 million has been awarded to thousands of cultural organisations across the country including Clean Break in the latest round of support from the Culture Recovery Fund, the Culture Secretary announced today.
This funding will predominantly be spent on our core activity, helping us to continue engaging with and supporting our Members (women who have experienced the criminal justice system or are at risk of entering it.) It will also ensure the retention of our valued staff and is, crucially, a significant investment in our future plans of returning to our building (and ensuring it is Covid secure), continuing our mission of making ground-breaking work for our audiences and working with our partners to change hearts and minds through theatre.
Over £800 million in grants and loans has already been awarded to support almost 3,800 cinemas, performance venues, museums, heritage sites and other cultural organisations dealing with the immediate challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.
The second round of awards made today will help organisations to look ahead to the spring and summer and plan for reopening and recovery. After months of closures and cancellations to contain the virus and save lives, this funding will be a much-needed helping hand for organisations transitioning back to normal in the months ahead.
Culture Secretary, Oliver Dowden, said:
“Our record breaking Culture Recovery Fund has already helped thousands of culture and heritage organisations across the country survive the biggest crisis they've ever faced.
Now we’re staying by their side as they prepare to welcome the public back through their doors - helping our cultural gems plan for reopening and thrive in the better times ahead."
Róisín McBrinn, Joint Artistic Director, said:
"We are hugely grateful to the government and the Arts Council for this award. It is coming at a time of major insecurity for the sector and at a moment of huge need for our Members. The award means we can face these next few months, and the new financial year, with far greater security and optimism for our long term sustainability as we invest in our reopening and recovery and continuing to make meaningful change within the theatre industry for our Members, our audiences and women in prisons."
Sir Nicholas Serota, Chair, Arts Council England, said:
“Investing in a thriving cultural sector at the heart of communities is a vital part of helping the whole country to recover from the pandemic. These grants will help to re-open theatres, concert halls, and museums and will give artists and companies the opportunity to begin making new work.
We are grateful to the Government for this support and for recognising the paramount importance of culture to our sense of belonging and identity as individuals and as a society.”
The funding awarded today is from a £400 million pot which was held back last year to ensure the Culture Recovery Fund could continue to help organisations in need as the public health picture changed. The funding has been awarded by Arts Council England, as well as Historic England and National Lottery Heritage Fund and the British Film Institute.
Clean Break is looking to appoint an experienced service-user involvement consultant (individual or organisation) to help fully realise our ambitions of Members (women with experience of the criminal justice system and women at risk of entering it) playing a meaningful and active part in the life of the Company.
Clean Break is committed to scaling up the involvement of our Members across company activity to ensure they contribute in a meaningful way to plans and decisions made about the company’s future. The way this happens at present is through regular feedback, and through our Members Forum and Members Advisory Group and at trustee level. However, progress with our Advisory Group has been slower than originally anticipated, due to lack of staff capacity to invest in this piece of work and more latterly the pandemic.
Outside of engagement in the artistic programme (as participants, volunteers and artists), our aim is for Members to be able to contribute to and to understand the work of staff and trustees who they may not come across in their everyday use of our services. There is a genuine appetite to accelerate and amplify Members' involvement to achieve our vision of ‘Members at the heart’ of Clean Break.
We believe that a new approach is needed, and are excited to invest some additional resource and capacity to review, improve and firmly establish the Members Advisory Group and Members Forum at Clean Break and ensure an accessible and fit for purpose model of involvement for the future.
Because our work is about highlighting women’s experiences and providing services for women with experience of the criminal justice system and at risk of entering it, all of our positions are open to women only, (exempt under the Equality Act 2010, Schedule 9, part 1). If you are an organisation the key people should be women.
Click here to download the information pack
The closing date for receipt of proposals is 10am on Friday 16 April 2021.
This year International Women’s Day we are asking you to join us and #ChooseToChallenge Maternal Imprisonment. At a time when the Government has just announced plans to build 500 new prison places for women and as the pandemic continues to impact on prisoners’ mental health and wellbeing, we're teamed up with Birth Companions to challenge the sentencing of pregnant women and mothers of young children.
Between International Women's Day on Monday 8 March and Mother's Day on Sunday 14 March we have a series of actions you can take. You can documentment your progress and encourage others to take up th challenge on social media. Use the hastages #ChooseToChallenge and #MaternalImprisonment
This plan flies in the face of all the evidence built up over years (including official Government data) about how to address the root causes of women's offending that so often include experiences of trauma, mental ill health, substance misuse and domestic abuse. These have been exacerbated as the consequences of the pandemic take their toll on the health and safety of the most disadvantaged women in our communities through increases in poverty and abuse.
In 2018 the Government published its strategy to invest in community-based support with the goal of reducing both the women's prison population and reoffending rates. This strategy is supported by the police, prison governors, probation officers, local authorities, health services and charities, including those providing specialist services for women, like women’s centres.
Building new prison places will make the collective efforts of these organisations all the more difficult, and undo progress with the strategy, including delivery of the Government’s newly published Concordat and all the commitments within it.
Building these prison places will harm women, their children, families and communities. The most recent Safety in Custody statistics show self-harm across the women’s estate is at the highest levels on record. These figures point to the urgent need to rethink these plans before the impact of prison expansion results in a steeper trajectory of this devastating upwards trend. We call on the Government to do the right thing to halt these plans, and return to focusing on the strategy that so many are committed to.
Kate Paradine, CEO, Women in Prison
Lisa Dando, CEO, Brighton Women’s Centre
Rokaiya Khan, CEO, Together Women
Joy Doal, CEO, Anawim
Niki Gould, Head of Women’s Community Services, Nelson Trust
Naomi Delap, Director, Birth Companions
Marchu Girma, CEO, Hibiscus
Helen Voce, CEO, Nottingham Women’s Centre
Hannah Shead, CEO, Trevi
Angela Everson, CEO, WomenCentre
Caroline Baker, Project Manager, Women's Work (Derbyshire)
Gemma Fox, Managing Director, North Wales Women’s Centre
Stef Martinsen-Barker, CEO, Cambridge Women's Resource Centre
Angela Murphy, Chief Executive Officer, Tomorrow’s Women Wirral
Anna Herrmann, Joint Artistic Director, Clean Break
Jackie May, Chief Executive, Women’s Centre Cornwall
Niki Scordi, CEO, Advance
Sara Swire, CEO, New Dawn, New Day
Jan Fishwick, CEO, Alana House, Parents and Children Together (PACT)
Nikki Guy, CEO, Stockport Women’s Centre
Natasha Finlayson, CEO, Working Chance
Sofia Buncy, National Coordinator, Muslim Women in Prison Project
Susanah Stennett, Women’s Services Manager, Willowdene Farm
Lisa Boyack, Area Manager for Criminal Justice Services, Changing Lives
Amanda Greenwood, CEO, Lancashire Women
Suzi Heybourne, CEO, The Magdalene Group
In November 2020 we celebrated the launch of our archive at the Bishopsgate Institute, London, with an online event called Efemera: The Origins and Survival of Clean Break Theatre Company.
Clean Break’s Chair, Alison Frater was joined by our Founders, Jacqueline Holborough and Jenny Hicks; theatre artist, Paula Varjack; Clean Break Member, Ann Whitely; Joint Artistic Director, Anna Herrmann; and researcher, Dr. Sarah Bartley to discuss the founding years of the company and how the archive is now being used to shape the present and future of Clean Break. The event included artistic and academic work inspired by the archive and offers real insight into the foundations of Clean Break as well as the lives of women with lived experience of the criminal justice system. We are thrilled to release the recording of the event as a rich resource for anyone interested in our story and the fields of arts and criminal justice, and to mark this next stage of our history.
The archive encapsulates 40 years of Clean Break’s work including playtexts, interviews, original art work, and letters, all paying tribute to the radical history of the company. It can be accessed at the Bishopsgate Institute in London and will be the subject of an exhibition at Swiss Cottage Gallery in Summer 2021.
Clean Break is looking to appoint an experienced anti-racism consultant or organisation to provide expertise and additional capacity to support us in designing and implementing our anti-racism commitments.
Clean Break is undertaking a thorough internal review of its anti-racism practices and policy framework. We are seeking the expertise of an external consultant to support us in our endeavour to improve understanding and rectify the systemic ways in which racism exists in our organisation and implement change that drives out inequality in our structures and processes. We want to build on our existing good practice and alter our future to the benefit of all women, enabling us to actively behave in an anti-racist way.
In this role you will work iteratively with the Joint Artistic Director and Head of Participation supporting them to lead this work effectively, offering guidance to help wise decision making and being accessible to address issues which may arise. You will also facilitate conversations with the whole staff team as well as the Chair and Trustees to ensure a company wide approach.
Because our work is about highlighting women’s experiences and providing services to women, all of our positions are open to women only (exempt under Equality Act 2020 Schedule 9, part 1). If you are an organisation the key personnel involved should be women.
Full details are in our pack and accompanying policies, linked below:
The deadline for submitting proposals is 10am on Monday 1 February.
Whatever way you spin it, 2020 has been a long year. At Clean Break, we’ve had our share of trying moments and we know from our cherished Members that most of them have found this year very challenging. However, we are proud that we have found a way through it, continued to deliver our programme to our Members and across women’s centres; to make groundbreaking art and remained true to our core values. None of this would have been possible without you, our wider community. Thank you for sticking with us while our building and theatres were closed and through your own undoubted pressures.
Our Members: We want to thank you for your resilience, the care that you have shown one another, your patience while we helped you to access our online programme, your courage to embrace that offer, your brilliant presence at our webinars and online events and for sharing your voices as artists through our project, 2 Metres Apart.
Our Funders: From the funders who know us, to those that are new to us this year; thank you. It is no exaggeration to say that without you we would not still be standing, and in a healthy position today. We would like to take this moment to say an additional thank you to the Cultural Recovery Fund, Julia and Hans Rausing Trust, National Lottery Community Fund, London Funders, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Arts Council England and Rank Foundation, who all provided transformative emergency support.
Our Staff Team: We are so proud and grateful to our team of exceptional women for their hard work, kindness and the immense skills they have shown in 2020. This year you helped to steer the organisation through furloughs, the epic achievement of reopening the building, a total reimagining of how we speak to audiences and engage with Members and triumphant diligence in achieving the financial sustainability of Clean Break. You’re amazing!
Our Artists: We’ve made two films, recorded an audio drama, made new commissions, developed our pipeline of plays, and worked with over 24 writers and artists to help us interpret this moment. You’ve delivered numerous sessions to our Members, adapted your practice in imaginative ways and continued to show your absolute dedication to our mission and vision. You are the backbone of the company. Thank you.
Our Partners: The strength of working together with partner organisations has been one of our greatest highlights this year. Alongside other women’s organisations in London, we have formed the London Women’s Services Alliance; with our academic partners, we have offered seminars, launched our archive and undertaken research; and with our arts partners, we have sent 200 messages of hope to women in prisons, created new digital work and provided much valued mutual support.
Our Volunteers and Patrons: Our volunteers always offer essential support, but this year that pool expanded to include more artists, Patrons and friends who gave their time by offering masterclasses, becoming creative buddies and mentors, speaking on panels and supporting our Development campaigns. Special thanks to Maxine Peake who was the voice of our BBC Radio 4 Campaign and Zawe Ashton who fronted our Big Give Campaign.
Our Trustees: Between multiple extra meetings, invaluable insights and steady support, our Board has been incredible this year. We thank our Trustees for their commitment, faith and kindness, particularly our outgoing Chair Kim Evans and our incoming Chair Alison Frater.
Our gratitude is abundant, and we will be channelling that into a new, hopeful year which we are approaching with optimism, emboldened by all you have done, big, small, immeasurable for Clean Break this year. Wishing you all a healthy and peaceful festive season and see you in 2021.
Anna, Erin and Róisín.
Leadership Team
The Big Give Christmas Challenge 2020 has been an incredible success thanks to the support from our amazing Clean Break family and friends – new and old!
In just one week, you helped to raise a phenomenal £31,677 which will enable us to support vulnerable women to Respond, Rebuild and Recover from the devastating impacts of Covid-19.
This generosity is already making a difference. We have been able to deliver care packages to our Members in time for the festive break. These packages are focused on care and relaxation and include vital items such as; protective face masks, essential toiletries, diaries and food vouchers for the festive period.
“It makes me feel like I haven’t been forgotten. That somebody does care for me…it just makes me feel special.” Clean Break Member
Thank you to everyone who has made this possible!
Zawe Ashton has been a Clean Break friend for many years; as a volunteer, writer in residence, actress, Patron and most recently as a mentor.
“Working with Clean Break … has been one of the most life changing professional and personal experiences of my life. To see first-hand the positive changes in women’s lives… is astonishing. Art therapy and drama therapy is real. The change they make is REAL. Society would benefit from a lot more Clean Breaks. They deserve support, they deserve visibility and the utmost respect.”
When Covid-19 struck earlier this year, Zawe reached out to Clean Break to see what she could do to support our Members, who are some of the most vulnerable women in society impacted by the inequalities that have been exacerbated by the pandemic.
Our online Members programme has been specially designed to provide creative and positive stimulus, to combat isolation and mental distress and foster creativity whilst living through the current challenges. As part of this offer, Zawe has delivered a series of Master Classes about 'Conscious Storytelling' and provided ongoing mentoring support to those on our Young Artists Development programme supporting them creatively, nurturing their talent, and staying connected.
Posy Sterling has been a Clean Break Member since 2015 and is a graduate from Italia Conti. Most recently, she performed in Clean Break’s national tour of Sweatbox by Chloë Moss and in the 2020 film adaptation of the play (currently in post production). With Clean Break she also performed in Belong at the Arcola Theatre and Lyric Hammersmith.
Join us on Wednesday 2 December from 6-7pm to hear Zawe and Posy exploring the impact of creativity on mental health and talk about their experience of working together over the last few months: what they produced, the impact of creativity on mental health, and the challenges and triumphs on their journey. This will be followed by a discussion about what draws them to the arts, their relationship with Clean Break and the opportunity for you to ask questions.
This event is part of Clean Break’s Big Give Christmas Challenge 2020, a fundraising campaign to help more women stay safe and well during lockdown. Tickets are free but every donation given to us between 12pm Tuesday 1st December – 12pm Tuesday 8th December will be DOUBLED!
Sonya joined Clean Break as a Member in 2011. She wrote a short play for the company in 2013, HOURS TIL MIDNIGHT, and was given a full length commission the same year. She performed in MEAL TICKET for Clean Break at Latitude Festival in 2014 and her play, BLIS-TA, is currently being made into an audio drama.
Sonya was such an inspiration to all of us at Clean Break. Beyond her brilliance as a writer, Sonya’s kindness, good humour and compassion touched many of us and she became a vital part of the Clean Break family – for staff, Members, Board and artists. We know that the friendships she formed in those early days of joining the company, walking alongside other women in recovery, sustained her and many of her peers over the past decade. She showed us all how to heal and affirmed the power of theatre and our imaginations in this process.
Even throughout her illness, Sonya had a resolute compassion for others – she wrote prolifically about women in prison during lockdown, wanting their stories to be heard and seen. To this end she was an amazing advocate for widening representation in theatre – and ensuring that stories from the margins are propelled centre stage. We will continue this work with Sonya in our hearts.
She will be hugely missed.
Our thoughts are with all those closest to her, especially with her son Fred, at this painful time.
Rest in Peace Sonya
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Can you tell us a little about what you did before Clean Break?
I’ve always been driven to work with people who are without privilege and who live in places where the resources are quite deprived. I feel the injustice and have always wanted to help those who are vulnerable and might need assistance, whether that’s been in the community or in schools.
Immediately before I came to Clean Break, I was working as the education lead for a youth offending service, trying to keep young black boys (in the main) from being excluded from school.
How did you hear about Clean Break and when did you start working with us?
I saw an advert for the role of Student Support Manager in The Guardian when I was on maternity leave and applied, but it was just too soon - my baby was still so young - so I retracted my application. However, they didn't appoint, and I got a call a few months later asking me whether I was still interested.
I did some checking and spoke to a friend who used to be head of arts and leisure at the Council and she said Clean Break was absolutely brilliant and to go for it because it was the perfect job for me…that was 17 years ago!
How did you feel when you first starting visiting prison?
What really struck me was the state of them; physically how repulsive and degrading and awful they were, the number of rats, it was disgusting and inhuman.
There’s something about seeing a woman in prison – an older woman, a pregnant women - it's just another level of everything, compassion, embarrassment for us that as a society this is what we do that, you know, feeling their shame but also seeing their joy that someone's come in, who hasn't got keys, and who's coming to talk to them, to work with them, to laugh with them.
But it was all those hurtful stories about being strip searched with male officers present, being told they have to take a shower, to have a pregnancy test, it was all those awful unimaginable things that really struck me and stayed with me irrespective of the race of the woman, it was a woman being treated like that.
When I say that, I don't want to just say that women are victims, there were real moments in those prisons where I saw joy, I saw nurturing, I saw caring, looking out for each other, I also saw a lot of resilience, a lot of togetherness, a lot of sisterhood in there. I saw moments where I thought my God, I'm in awe of you because even in this environment you have managed to create a maternal space.
Can you speak about some of the pivotal moments and reflections you have on the Criminal Justice System over the past 17 years?
I think one of the one of the biggest moments was Baroness Corston’s report in 2007 when there was a political will to show what was happening in women's prisons. She did her homework, she spoke to women in prison, and her recommendations were completely on pointe.
Another pivotal moment was the impact felt by the introduction of trauma informed work and organisational gender responsiveness by Stephanie Covington in 2014. Although representation wasn’t being addressed at the time, Stephanie also recognised that racism (in itself) is traumatic so when you think of the experience of imprisonment being traumatic, these two traumas are compounded for those women of colour who are in prison. They then have the debilitating lack of opportunity when they get out, so they carry that trauma with them throughout their journey.
There were more women’s prisons back when I started working at Clean Break, but even though we have less now, it is so stark that there are over 2,000 more women in prison. During this time, I’ve seen the decimation of the probation services, the rise in short term sentencing and the disregard for many of the recommendations from David Lammy and Baroness Corston.
Did you see systemic racism in prison?
During my visits, many Black and mixed-race women were telling me how differently they were treated. How they don't get the privileges, “I'm often being told I haven’t done that right even if I was halfway to earning it”. The privileges would be withdrawn. They would never get any of the good jobs (like gardening) which would allow them out into the fresh air. They would have their leave removed so they couldn’t see their children or wouldn’t be given release on temporary licence. These are things that were subjective to the senior officer and then backed up by the governor. It’s all about power. I met one or two people in prison I thought “you're an amazing prison officer,” and then there were many more that I literally shuddered at the thought of them having any power over anyone except themselves.
What these women were telling me was borne out by David Lammy’s Independent Review.
I don't really feel like the situation has changed at all; that's not what I'm hearing from the women who have done projects with us recently. I mean there's no more strip searches and things like that because of Baroness Corston and hopefully its more trauma informed, but we're still seeing the deaths in custody, we’re still seeing things that show there's a lot of work to be done. Prisons are not a place to make money from and once we start looking for profit from those places there will be a cost, but it will be a human cost!
Can you tell us about any of the women you have met during your time at Clean Break (and how racism affected their lives)?
I have three short stories about women who were innocent.
I was really struck when I met a young Black woman back in 2004. She was 23, had a partner – who hadn’t been living with her – but moved in when she became pregnant. Within a couple of months he had changed, no longer the man she had been romantically in love with. Despite her objections, he brought Class A drugs into her home, she couldn't do anything to stop him. Her family lived many miles away and she felt that by telling them she would be putting them at risk. The police raided the house and found the drugs. He was already in trouble and had other charges against him, so he told her that she needed to take the rap for him. He threatened her and the baby so in the end she decided to do what he said. They imprisoned her at five months pregnant, with a completely clean record, and they didn't even question as to whether the drugs could have been her partners. I asked why she thought this had happened, and she said she thought that “they were just happy to get someone.”
She had the baby in prison, and they handcuffed her all the way to the maternity ward, she was in so much pain and distress and yet still they restrained her. That baby remained on the child protection register until she was 18 even though her mother never took a drug in her life and was innocent of the crime. Her world was turned upside down, but she showed enormous strength and resilience and she is doing incredibly well and is now helping other people to turn their lives around
I met another woman in prison, she was older, in her early 50s. She had been a carer for 28 years, devoutly religious. She was part of a team caring for someone in their home when money went missing. There was no evidence that she (or any of her colleagues) had taken the money and when I asked why she thought the finger was pointed at her, she said “I can only think it's because I'm Black”. She was arrested, went to court thinking it would be thrown out, but instead got sentenced for six months.
The sum of money was £10! That floored me, it floored me! She is one of the calmest women I've ever met, she just said “I'm going to be praying, you know I'm sure they're going to find out that I didn't do it, I’m not a dishonest person I would never do that.”
She was a really positive influence on the other women in prison, praying with them, giving them recipes. She was released after two and a half months, spent some time with us at Clean Break and then moved to the Midlands where she could start again to rebuild her life and her reputation.
The third story is about a white woman who was also really young, she was doing an MA in criminology. Her boyfriend didn’t live with her, but without telling her, had stashed Class A drugs at her home because it was a safe place to hide them. He got arrested whilst out with friends and the police raided his flat, and on finding nothing, raided the home of his girlfriend. They found the drugs and questioned her, and although her boyfriend confessed that she knew nothing about them and took the full blame, they charged her, she went to court and she was sentenced to 20 months in prison.
She said the judge said to her that he “wants the full weight of the law to fall on top of her because there is no way a middle class, intelligent young woman like her should be going out with people like him, people like that.” She said the only word he didn’t say was white, she said he didn't need to. Her boyfriend was Black, he also went down, they still charged him, but it just wasn't enough they wanted her to be punished as well, to see the consequences of association.
These are just three stories, there were loads of women I talked to who said that “I'm innocent, I haven't done anything, I've been coerced!’ It's interesting to think how those cases would be looked at now, with a different pair of eyes but who would look back at these stories now and not say that that's a form of injustice?
What does Black History Month mean to you?
Black History Month (laughs) I do have to smile, I mean it's one month to celebrate good food, rich culture, fresh new ideas and I suppose it's also a chance to see many more black faces, new and old on our screens.
I look forward to hearing all the Members ‘sharings’ because there are people who have a myriad of different experiences that are connected to me. It’s an explosion of form, they are full of such rebellion and resistance they are emotive. I can feel quite sad but equally uplifted and empowered there's just more colour on the screen, things just get more colourful, noisier, vibrant and lively!
I'm joyful too because one of the biggest tools against oppression and suppression is humour and you know that's to be found in loads of places but one of the times I see it more is during Black History Month.
But then I think it's all crammed into one month! I mean we're not going to go and hibernate for 11 months, we need to be seen, we are a part of everyday that is the truth. We need to be seen and we need to be heard. I have this analogy which actually was part of a proverb someone told me and it's a bit like during the month we can sing and dance, do whatever with lots of pride and then during the other 11 months we've still got to dance but we’ve got to watch our side and what that means to me is in that month we're out there but when I say dance it means we still have to live, it’s a metaphor for living but we’ve got to watch our side we’ve got to be much more careful those other 11 months.
It’s important that people don't feel that they've been given a month to say every single thing that happens to them or what they'd like to see across the year and then are told to shut up.
What are your hopes for the future?
That’s a big question! I have so many so I’m going to break it down into a few bullet points!
And finally, I would just like to give thanks for all our wonderful powerful talented community of women, our Members, staff, artists and volunteers – and my last thoughts are for all our continued health!
Photography: All The Lights Are On, Tracey Anderson
Paulette Randell MBE is one of the most influential women in theatre and television. She has directed at many of the UK's leading theatres, was the first Black woman to direct a dramatic play on the West End, was the Artistic Director of Talawa Theatre Company and is behind many of your favourite shows on TV. Her path through the industry is also closely linked with Clean Break having met one of Clean Break's founders at drama school. For the company, she then went on to write 24% in 1991, direct one of Clean Break's seminal plays Head-rot Holiday by Sarah Daniels and was Chair of the Board of Trustees.
As part of Clean Break's Black History Month celebrations we invited Paulette to have a conversation with our Development & Members Assistant, Demi Wilson-Smith. The basis of their conversation was 24%, inspired by the percentage of Black women who made up the prison system in 1991 and focusing on the impact the criminal justice system had on young Black women. With the impact of that play as a spring board, in this interview they discuss intergenerational activism, culture, being Black women in theatre, the criminal justice system, the future for Black voices and the search for Paulette's missing play.
#FindPaulettesPlay
Clean Break is to host a Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries Fellow as part of a programme to get more people from low socio-economic backgrounds into cultural careers. Across the UK there will be 50 exciting opportunities to develop a career in the arts, with each role playing an important part in the host organisation. Clean Break is welcoming applications for the role of Participation Associate, which will involve working across Clean Break’s Members programme, Young Artist Development Programme and Prison residencies.
Even before the pandemic wreaked havoc on career prospects in the arts, those from middle-class backgrounds were 2.5 times more likely to end up in creative occupations than their working-class peers. This is a situation which has not improved since records began in 2014. Social mobility is a greater issue in the cultural sector and wider creative industries than across the economy as a whole. The wider creative industries have created over 300,000 jobs over the past five years, yet the number of creative workers from working-class backgrounds has increased by just 33,000. Just as with the impact of the 2008 financial crisis, it is expected that those who are already finding it difficult to make their way in the arts will be the worst hit by the impact of covid-19.
The Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries aim to redress the balance by funding 50 paid, year-long artistic and creative Fellowships as well as an organisational development programme run by people make it work to embed inclusive practices for the host organisation, with three members of the host team taking part, including a board member and a senior executive.
This is the fourth edition of the programme, which has been running for over 10 years and has 125 alumni to date, many of whom have forged successful careers. This edition of WJCB is the largest yet, with support from Arts Council England’s Transforming Leadership Programme, Garfield Weston Foundation, Art Fund, Arts Council of Wales, Creative Scotland, and PRS Foundation.
Click here to find out more about the programme
Click here to find out more about the thinking behind the programme
Click here to see which other organisations are involved
The Applied Theatre Reader brings together new case studies of practice by leading practitioners in Applied Theatre and academics in the field and beyond.
This new edition covers the breadth of applied theatre practice with essays on playback theatre, digital technology, work with indigenous practitioners, inter-generational practice and school projects. Contributors come from across the UK and world including South America, Australia and New Zealand.
Clean Break was asked to contribute a chapter and chose to focus on the ethics of representation when making public facing work about the experiences of women in prison. Joint Artistic Director, Anna Herrmann worked with Prof Caoimhe McAvinchey, who has been a long-term supporter and researcher of Clean Break, on the chapter. They brought the creators of Inside Bitch on board to talk about the process of making the play as collaborators—some of whom had lived experience of prison and others who did not.
In the article you’ll hear from Lucy Edkins, Jennifer Joseph, TerriAnn Cousins, Jade Small, Deborah Pearson and Stacey Gregg about the project alongside critical writing about Clean Break’s practice.
Clean Break has two articles focusing on its work in Prison Writing and the Literary World: Imprisonment, Institutionality and Questions of Literary Practice. The book tackles international prison writing and writing about imprisonment from a literary and critical perspective. It offers scholarly essays exploring prison writing in relation to wartime internment, political imprisonment, resistance and independence creation, regimes of terror, and personal narratives of development and awakening that grapple with race, class and gender.
This first essay about Clean Break is by Prof Caoimhe McAvinchy from Queen Mary University on Clean Break’s Theatre of Necessity. The second is by Joint Artistic Director, Anna Herrmann; Playwright, Deborah Bruce; and Clean Break Member, Clare Barstow who participated in Clean Break’s participated in many theatre-writing workshops in prison. This article focuses on Clean Break’s theatre-writing workshops in prisons, focusing on the aims and challenges of working in a prison setting. The different perspectives in the article aim to heighten the understanding of the transformative power of writing in prison settings. It showcases the healthy and nurturing culture of Clean Break’s work where women are valued for what they bring, where they are inspired with hope and creativity, and are treated with respect.
We are incredibly grateful to have received a lifeline grant from Government’s £1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund to help face the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and to ensure we have a sustainable future.
This grant is crucial to our survival and will enable us to continue to support freelancers, artists and our Members, women with experience of the criminal justice system or who are at risk of entering it. We are committed to supporting those who have been deeply impacted by the pandemic by continuing to practice and deliver our work.
Clean Break is one of 1,385 cultural and creative organisations across the country receiving urgently needed support. £257 million of investment has been announced today as part of the very first round of the Culture Recovery Fund grants programme being administered by Arts Council England. Further rounds of funding in the cultural and heritage sector are due to be announced over the coming weeks.
Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said:
“This funding is a vital boost for the theatres, music venues, museums and cultural organisations that form the soul of our nation. It will protect these special places, save jobs and help the culture sector’s recovery.
“These places and projects are cultural beacons the length and breadth of the country. This unprecedented investment in the arts is proof this government is here for culture, with further support to come in the days and weeks ahead so that the culture sector can bounce back strongly.”
Chair, Arts Council England, Sir Nicholas Serota, said:
“Theatres, museums, galleries, dance companies and music venues bring joy to people and life to our cities, towns and villages. This life-changing funding will save thousands of cultural spaces loved by local communities and international audiences. Further funding is still to be announced and we are working hard to support our sector during these challenging times.”
Leadership Team, Erin Gavaghan, Anna Herrmann and Róisín McBrinn, said:
“There is a long road ahead for all of us, but this support gives us hope. We thank everyone who has supported Clean Break so far this year; we are here and continue to be here because of you.”
Today, Keir Starmer, Leader of the Labour Party and local MP for Holborn & St Pancras, visited Clean Break to celebrate the re-opening of our building for our Members. Located in Keir’s constituency, our building is a vital centre for support, connection and creativity for the vulnerable women with whom we work.
During his visit, Keir met Joint Artistic Directors Anna Herrmann and Róisín McBrinn and watched Clean Break Members Jade, Funke and Posy, filming Sweatbox, a play whose nationwide tour was cancelled due to the pandemic.
Keir Starmer: “It is great to be at Clean Break to see them welcome back their Members.
“Much of the focus on the arts during this pandemic has rightly been on the huge financial challenges facing the sector. It’s also important to remember the huge impact that this period has had on people’s wellbeing, and I know that Clean Break and other theatre companies have been very eager to get started again.
“I am very glad that Clean Break have been able to re-open safely so they can continue with their important work.”
Clean Break Member: "It's been more than 6 months since lockdown and I was very worried that maybe I wouldn’t be able to go out again... but today when I came back to Clean Break I kind of felt like, oh yeah I can do this. It’s given me hope."
Róisín McBrinn and Anna Herrmann, Joint Artistic Directors: “Lockdown has been particularly trying for our Members, many of whom have been impacted by the negative effects of poor mental health, isolation, impoverishment and a lack of access to technology. Our priority has been to respond to our Members’ needs, with care packages, weekly phone calls, and online theatre programmes. But they deeply missed the lifeline that Clean Break provides. It is so important to us all to be back in the building together and we are thrilled Keir could join us at this time.”
Click here to read the full press release.
Photo credit: Olivia Chancellor
