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. 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. 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. We deliver training to teachers prior to the PSHE programme being delivered, and drug and alcohol awareness training to teachers, school staff and other professionals working with young people. 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.”

The production is incredibly powerful, and aimed at students from years 9-13. It explores issues of choice, risk and consequence, but also friendship, love and loss, and the impact of our choices on others. 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 and I promise I won’t die is intended to be performed as two separate one act plays, but I feel it works just as well, if not better, as a two act play. At the end of such an amazing performance you would typically expect a standing ovation, but this was so emotionally draining you felt too numb to stand and on reflection that is more fitting than bursting into rapturous applause. 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

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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.

We are delighted to be touring the full-length version of this powerful and emotional story,” says Elliot Montgomery, Octopus Dream Theatre Artistic Director. I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die by prolific playwright Mark Wheeller is the story of Dan, a popular South London schoolboy, who took ecstasy at an illegal rave and tragically died as a result of taking a lethal dose. This fast-paced, powerful and emotionally-charged play, tells the true story of what happened to Dan, the choices he made and the impact on his family and friends – all told in their own words, from tragedy to redemption. 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.Mark has been writing successful plays since the 1980s, and writes powerfully for young people, using Theatre in Education to communicate about issues that affect them. His plays are extensively used in the drama curriculum in schools, he has been one of the playwrights recommended in the Edexcel GCSE drama syllabus for many years. Two of his plays, ‘Hard to Swallow’ and ‘Missing Dan Nolan’, have been set texts on two out of four of the GCSE drama (9-1) specifications from 2016- 2023. His play ‘Too Much Punch for Judy’, written in 1987, is one of the most performed contemporary plays in the UK. It’s absolutely amazing, and more than we could ever have imagined when we started working as hard as we could to try to prevent anyone else’s child come to harm from drugs. So many more teenagers will get to experience this play with its important messages of choice and risk, of friendship, love, loss, forgiveness. And come to feel they know Dan, and to care about him and what happened to him, because that’s what the play seems to do. 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. I’d had a conversation specifically with Dan about ecstasy. It’s one of the things you do as a parent, isn’t it? Wear your helmet when you’re out on your bike, you know, don’t take drugs. To be honest, I was more worried about him being safe on his bike than at a party with his friends.

I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die is approved set text for the EDUQAS GCSE Drama (component 3) This DVD shows the original 2016 OYT production as premiered at the Brit School, directed by author, Mark Wheeller. 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. In May 1997 Daniel Spargo-Mabbs was born. His parents, like every parent wondered what he will achieve, what job will he do? In January 2014 I was pregnant and my whole world was going to change; just 30 miles away Fiona and Tim Spargo-Mabbs’ world was about to change dramatically too their son, Daniel, died on January 20th 2014. You shouldn’t have your children go before you. How do you cope with something so tragic? Fiona and Tim have done more than cope they have set up a foundation in Daniel’s name ‘The Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation’ ( www.dsmfoundation.org.uk) and over the last 18 months they have worked with playwright Mark Wheeller to have Daniel’s story turned into a verbatim play as a performance to educate young people – they want the production to tour schools so that ‘many good things can come from this very bad thing.’ This play has a message much bigger than the assumption ‘drugs are bad’ it shows the power of friendship, trust, family and love and how one person’s actions can have dire consequences on all of those.The filmed version of ‘I Love You, Mum..’ aired on the Edinburgh Fringe Player in 2021 and received critical acclaim: 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