UNRULY

The preview of this event took place at ARC Stockton on 23 May 2024

Audience Feedback

We are indebted to our first ever audience of this show - people attended in person at ARC and online via a livestream. This is some of the wonderful feedback we have received on social media, which we've anonymised. 

​We feel so lucky to be able to host and support work like this at ARC. We're so thankful that we we're able to share this superb piece of theatre with our audiences. Huge congratulations are due to @viciws and her wonderful team! Thank you for making Unruly here at ARC, and sharing it with our audiences first.  We can't wait to see what the future holds for this show.                   
ARC STOCKTON

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Great to see #Unruly at @arcstockton by the incredible powerhouses  @viciws @BexBowsher @beccyowen! Telling the stories of disabled women - full of punk, activism and p*ssing on pity.
ARC AUDIENCE
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One of the best theatre pieces I have ever seen and heard. Unruly is a testament to the legacy of disability activism that paved the way for independence and rights as disabled people…and showed us we still have far to go. Massive congrats to 
@viciws and team, brilliant stuff.
ONLINE AUDIENCE

@viciws is a powerhouse (and leader) in showing how arts and culture can be accessible and made accessible for disabled people. Whether that is engaging, creating spaces to make art, and platforming vital voices. It is a joy to be able to see a live play, in the comfort of …my own home, and to be able to follow along with closed captions that were integrated so skilfully into the set. Seriously, go and watch this when it starts touring. We need more of this type of work. Congratulations again to @viciws & her team, you’ve given permission for us to take space and roar! #unruly #disabilityarts
ONLINE AUDIENCE

Loved it! Well done to all the team. Powerful, beautiful and crucial
ONLINE AUDIENCE

Well done - was such a gorgeous lyrical performance, so pleased to have caught it 
ARC AUDIENCE

Pair o’ punks, right there. A real delight being part of @viciws creative team for the preview performance of her play UNRULY tonight. Smashed it. Gorgeous audience. Fascinating q and a.
CREATIVE TEAM

Congratulations Vici, it was wonderful to tune in from afar. Well done to you and everyone involved on making a fantastic show 
ONLINE AUDIENCE

Watched @viciws first preview of Unruly. What a performance. So much heart, beautiful music (loved all the punk songs turned into folk music) and beautiful delivery of text! Looking forward to seeing the future of this show. 
ONLINE AUDIENCE​

Just watched! It was brilliant! Congratulations Vic and team!
ONLINE AUDIENCE

Wasn’t  @viciws brilliant! Such fabulous show. Loved the storytelling, set and performance, and the music was so evocative. Congratulations to all. It had so much richness with light, shadows and mirth entwined. 
ONLINE AUDIENCE

The characters and stories and threads running through…a really amazing work. I’ve never seen Vic’s stage work before, only her wonderful art, so it was truly mind blowing. 
ONLINE AUDIENCE​

Went to see your show at Arc Stockton last night. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Funny, touching, thought-provoking. Well done and thank you
ARC AUDIENCE

I am truly blessed to be a friend of such a talented, sensitive playwright who will continue to amuse, shock and touch our hearts all at once. The people who worked alongside were amazing too, helping to bring the play ‘ Unruly ‘ to its ultimate success 
Very well done to all xxx
ARC AUDIENCE

I was so thrilled  to watch on line Vici Ws last night - your performance was powerful, provocative, at times deeply moving, made me laugh out loud, and very proud that here you were empowered and presenting a disability perspective that was punky and damp good! Many Congratulations  now I just need to see it live - I hope I can !
ONLINE AUDIENCE

If you get chance to see this play .. do.. it's a great story from a punk perspective about unruly fantastic disabled women! Well done Vici WS .. great !
ARC AUDIENCE

You were magnificent!!! Bravo. Congratulations to the whole team - it sounded and looked stunning
ONLINE AUDIENCE  ​

​Unruly is the preview performance of ARC’s Associate Artist Vici Wreford-Sinnott‘s new show. Written and performed by Vici alongside award-winning composer and musician Beccy Owen.

Marina and Suze, a force of post-punk, police-agitating, bollocks-shouting duo who were changing the world through the disability rights movement. Best friends from childhood, the pair had a loyal, fiery relationship, but now Marina has lost Suze, and the revolution has to stop for a while. Marina reflects on their riotous journey, embodying their world, as she summons a lineage of powerful disabled heroines.

In order to say goodbye to Suze properly, Marina questions whether it has all been worth it. Acknowledging the personal cost of campaigning, and feeling like she has to query her own role, she carefully unpacks her life and slowly removes the layers of women she was expected to be by others.

Bex Bowsher directs this rare piece of disabled women-led theatre with an impassioned call to action. We invite you to celebrate these hidden radicals while considering whether doing nothing to oppose brutal injustice is ever really an option.

Unruly is a powerful, urgent show about refusing to be invisible in hostile environments and the power of friendship to get us through.

This performance is followed by a post show Q+A with writer and performer Vici Wreford-Sinnott, and director Bex Bowsher, hosted by ARC’s Chief Executive & Creative Director Alexander Ferris.

Creative and Production Team

Vici Wreford-Sinnott: Writer and Performer

Vici is a writer/director for theatre, screen and radio from the North East where she founded Little Cog, a disabled-led theatre company, in 2011. Vici is a leading figure in the UK Disability Arts Movement and is a proud Associate Artist at ARC Stockton.

Vici was commissioned by the BBC to write and direct her short film Hen Night creating one of the first ever pieces of broadcast British drama by a disabled women-led team.  Films include Funny Peculiar starring BBC Silent Witness actor Liz Carr for Northern Stage and ARC Stockton, Siege was commissioned by Home Manchester and ARC Stockton Homemakers with her accompanying non-fiction series The Wrong Woman Discussions featuring four other disabled women performing in the public eye.  Vici’s radio drama The UnSung was commissioned by Durham Book Festival, New Writing North and ARC Stockton.

Vici was commissioned by Live Theatre Newcastle to write with the love of neither god nor state for Three Acts of Love and is currently under commission to Live Theatre for her play Useless F*cker. Funny Peculiar and Siege are published by Salamander Street  and with the love of neither god nor state was published by Methuen Drama in 2023.
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Vici’s original theatre work includes Butterfly (Best One Person Play 2018 British Theatre Guide, National Tour), Lighthouse (bilingual piece in English and BSL, British Premiere ARC Stockton), Another England (National Tour), The Art Of Not Getting Lost (ARC Stockton and Northern Stage), Vote for Caliban (Northern Stage), Deadly Devotchka (Edinburgh Fringe), Moll Cutpurse: A Comedy for the 21st Century (UK and Ireland Tour). Vici has many directing credits and has mentored many disabled writers to bring their work to the stage.

In 2021 Vici was awarded the North East Arts and Culture Award for Outstanding Contribution to the arts in the region.

Bex Bowsher: Dramaturg and Director

Bex Bowsher is an accomplished theatre director, playwright, and screenwriter based in the North of England. With a rich background in crafting words for performance, Bex fearlessly challenges societal norms through critically acclaimed plays, notably "Spoon Theory," lauded as 'The Next I, Daniel Blake.’ During her Regional Theatre Young Director’s Scheme (RTYDS) 18-month Assistant Director in Residence placement with Live Theatre and Northern Stage, Bex assisted on numerous plays and directed the critically acclaimed, sold-out  "Love It If We Beat Them” by Rob Ward. Since the end of her RTYDS placement in 2023, Bex has worked with the RSC (37 Plays Project) and Live Theatre (Three Acts of Love). Bex has been supported and developed through many prestigious schemes such as the BBC Writer’s Room, Graeae’s Write to Play, the Live Lab Bursary and the North East Artist Development Network Bursary. 
 
Directing credits include Three Acts of Love (2023, Live Theatre); Radiant Boy and The Filleting App (2023, Northern Stage/RSC); The List (2023, Live Theatre); Love It If We Beat Them (2023, Live Theatre)

Assistant Director credits include The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (dir. Maria Crocker, 2022, Northern Stage); One Off (dir. Jack McNamara, 2022, Live Theatre) and Red Ellen (dir. Wils Wilson, 2022, Northern Stage/Edinburgh Lyceum/Nottingham Playhouse/York Theatre Royal)
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Writing credits include Spoon Theory (2018, Live Theatre); The Gift (2017, Sheer Height TC); Statuesque (2017, Hampstead Theatre); Dig (2017, Alphabetti Theatre)

Beccy Owen: Composer and Live Musician

Beccy Owen is a Welsh-born songwriter, singer, musical director and composer based in the North East of England. Over the last twenty years Beccy has made a name for her self by releasing six solo albums. Her most recent record was CHAOTICA, an eight song requiem to the loss and resilience involved with living with bipolar disorder and trauma, and over the past few years her work has become focussed on creating music and sound that offers a restorative and restful portal for listeners. 

Beccy’s work as a recording artist, musical director and theatre maker has won critical acclaim in both the media and amongst her army of underground supporters. Beccy has been by the NME as ‘a delinquent Carole King’ and by Music Week as ‘a fallen, aggrieved dark angel, and a very, very special talent’.

Theatre includes:  Road (director, Gulbenkian Studio, Newcastle); Dancing Bear (writer/performer, Jamie Fletcher Company); Lands of Glass (Unfolding Theatre); Grief Floats (Sound designer/performer, Company of Others); Promised Land (Musical Director, Red Ladder); Mother Courage and Her Children (MD/Performer, Red Ladder); We’re Not Going Back (Red Ladder); Night Classes (Sound Designer, Unfolding Theatre); The Watch House (Composer, Papatango Theatre)

 Television includes: The Culture Show (BBC2), Our World War (BBC1), various advertisements.
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 Film includes: The Karman Line (Netflix), The Amplified Sanctum (Fairy Snuff Productions)

Kim McDermottroe: Production Designer

Kim McDermottroe is a Creative Director, costume and puppet designer/maker, illustrator and mentor.
 
For the past 20 years she has worked across cultural sectors and also with businesses who want creative solutions.
 
Kim has featured in both Small Business Saturday and F:entrepreneur top 100 and in 2021 she was shortlisted to top 5 in the UK Pantomime Association Awards for best costume.
 
This is Kim’s 21st year freelance operating under the business name Greener Lavelle -  a leading outdoor arts provider in the Tees Valley, developing skills, knowledge and experience within the community carnival sector and establishing strong relationships with the public, local authorities and businesses.
 
She has costumed many shows for Middlesbrough Youth Theatre, costume and set for Middlesbrough Town Hall Performing Arts, Launch Day and Deeds Not Words for Abbott Dance Theatre, production design for Full Circle’s Stomping Ground and she had done wardrobe for Birmingham Royal Ballet and Sir Tom Jones.
 
Her work has been seen at Stockton International Riverside Festival, Middlesbrough Reindeer Parade, Stories of the World - museum Exhibition- A cultural Olympiad project- The Dorman Museum, Theatre Hullabaloo. She supplied educational costumes, designed and illustrated the education pack and worked on the refurbishment of The Captain Cook Birthplace Museum, Middlesbrough. In 2018, she programmed Redcar Puppet Festival.  In 2022 she was Creative Director for the Redcar & Cleveland Illumination Parade. In 2023 she was Creative Director for Wintertide Festival, Hartlepool opening parade.  Both times, helping to embed inclusion and accessibility into the creative programmes. 

Kamilla Jonsson: Production Manager

Alicia Meehan: Movement Director

​Kamilla is a freelancer in production management, stage management and lighting, based in the North East. With a background in the music industry and festivals, she now mostly works in theatre and dance.

​Her credits include shows such as Johannes Radebe's Freedom tour (ROYO Entertainment), A Doll's House (Elysium Theatre Company), The Odyssey - The Island of the Sun (National Theatre/Sunderland Culture), I, Daniel Blake (Northern Stage), A is for Amy (Changing Relations), Metamorphoses (New Wolsey Theatre), Three Acts of Love (Live Theatre) and Inevitable? (Mortal Fools). 

Alicia Meehan is a movement artist, based in the North East, working as a choreographer, movement director and performer. Her training began in classical dance at Northern Ballet School, she later progressed on to explore contemporary dance and choreography at Laban, gaining an MA in Creative Practice in 2013. Alicia Meehan has developed her artistry through national touring, festivals and performances. She has been involved in projects at Live Theatre, BalletLORENT, Gratte Ciel, Southpaw Dance Company, Fully Booked Theatre, Curious Arts and Northern Stage, amongst others. She has recently been awarded ‘Developing your Creative Practice’ (DYCP) funding through Arts Council England, to develop her movement direction practice. 
​aliciameehan.com 

Access Information for Unruly
This show has integral BSL and captioning. Please ask about the best seating for each.
Audio description is written into the script, and an advance touch tour is also available for set description and a description of the character. Please contact the Box Office (on 01642 525199 or email [email protected]) to arrange this or arrive early and approach front of house staff about it.

Access culture of the show
There will be a warm welcome into the theatre. We create work to be as accessible as possible and we want audiences to feel comfortable in the space.

Audience members who would benefit from arriving early to get comfortable in the space are welcome to/ enter up to half an hour early. Please let front of house staff aware when you arrive, and they can show you up to the Studio Theatre.

It’s fine to come and go in the theatre if you need the loo or to take a break.
People who make involuntary noises based on their conditions are welcome, and as such we expect all audience members to be respectful of all other audience members. It is a ‘tutting’ and frowning free-zone.

There is no audience participation during the show, so no one will be put on the spot for anything. After the show there will be a short break and then there is a chat with the creative team in a question and answer session (Q&A). All are welcome.

Access dogs are welcome. Do let us know in advance where possible.

Music and sound
All music is performed live by one musician/sound artist/singer. Some of the music is in a punk style and so many have attitude and a degree of reasonable volume. No loud bangs and no distorted sound are expected.

There are a couple of moments where the actor raises their voice in the context of the play – we will provide timings for when to expect these to happen in advance of the show.

Content awareness
The play explores themes of friendship and loss, reflection on life events, amazing disabled women from history who achieved incredible things against very challenging and discriminatory social backdrops. There are references to death and there is mention of a friend taking their own life – there is no detail described. Drinking alcohol excessively as a young person is referenced. All of these things are carefully balanced with the celebration of disabled people’s lives and triumphs, of friendship and community. There is a message of hope and a call to action.
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We can provide more details of content, so please do contact Box Office with any questions. Call us on 01642 525199 or email [email protected].

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