‘Are we speaking out as yet about the two women a week being killed by abusive partners?’ Photo: Courtesy of Journeymen Theatre.
‘There is no audience quite like a prison audience.’
Journeymen Theatre co-founder Lynn Morris reflects on performing a play on domestic abuse to men in HMP Ashfield
October was Domestic Violence Awareness Month and those who noticed were encouraged to wear purple to show their support. I have to ask, who actually did know? At Journeymen Theatre, as we engage with audiences all over the UK, performing our play on domestic abuse Rock And A Hard Place, I would say the awareness of the significance of October in recognising this human rights abuse is actually low to nonexistent among the general public. It certainly came as a shock to our audience recently in HMP Ashfield. Those men watch TV quite avidly but they were able to testify that there had been not one public information advertisement, nor anything in print-based media to raise awareness of Purple October.
