The prisoner next door has hung himself.
Another has been beaten by an officer.
Kelly is barricaded inside a cell with the officer.
Both are guilty of something and both want answers.
Officer Scully plays a dangerous game to predict Kelly’s future, his own is in the balance.
The Cell has been written by Michael Crowley who has been writer in residence at a young offenders’ institution for the last six years. The play itself was developed with staff and inmates at the young offenders’ institution.
A hostage drama with a difference, the two central characters are a long-serving and long-suffering officer Scully, played by Joe O’Byrne and serial inmate Kelly, played by David Barlow. The Cell was premiered at last year’s 24:7 Theatre Festival, Manchester and then selected for a production at Bolton Octagon’s Bill Naughton Studio as well as the You Are Here Festival, Australia in March and now this acclaimed play comes to the Unity Theatre in Liverpool for a three night run beginning on Tuesday 7th May.
One of the 24:7 shows was filmed and is shown in a number of prisons to raise awareness about bullying. Crowley uses the film and his script as a basis for creative writing getting young prisoners to write post play scenes involving the fictional characters and even characters not in the play such as a prisoner officer’s wife. He says of this, “part of the key to working with young prisoners or any young person really, is to get them inside someone else’s skin, to try to see life through the eyes of someone very different to themselves.”
Tickets for The Cell are priced at £10 with concessions available at £8. Tickets are available from The Unity Theatre Box office, by telephone on 0844 8732888 or online at www.unitytheatreliverpool.co.uk