A socially and politically timely stage adaptation of Sara Ryan’s book Justice for Laughing Boy – based on a true story - uncovers some of the flaws in the UK’s National Health Service.
The world premiere stage production of Laughing Boy at Bath’s Theatre Royal, starring Janie Dee, Forbes Masson and Alfie Friedman, is served up by writer and director Stephen Unwin as a powerful piece of theatre that acutely reflects the current crisis in social and mental health care.
Laughing Boy is the story of Connor Sparrowhawk, an autistic teenager with learning difficulties who also suffers from epilepsy. He loves buses, Eddie Stobart, and Lego and swears a lot.
When he dies an entirely preventable death drowned unsupervised in a bath while in a Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust assessment and treatment unit in 2013, his mum Sara can’t get a straight answer as to how it happened.
But the grieving and angry Sara and her family won’t stop asking questions of the Health Trust and soon an extraordinary campaign for justice emerges. Demanding the truth, it uncovers a scandal of neglect and indifference that goes beyond Connor’s death to thousands of others.
Cleverly, the audience is given a snapshot picture of Connor’s short life through his interests and through the memories of his family, presented by his four siblings, his mother Sara and her partner Rich.
We discover that Connor is a much-loved ‘laughing boy’ who loves trains and lorries and visiting London, where he enjoys rides on red London buses.
Newcomer Alfie Friedman captures Connor’s buoyant, eager-minded charm, and his special bond with Sara, played by Janie Dee, who plays an emotionally draining role with perfect professionalism.
But when he reaches the age of 18, Connor, now a strong and tall young man, suddenly becomes aggressive, abusive, occasionally violent and much more difficult to control.
His desperate family decide to place him in the Slade House Assessment and Treatment Unit near Oxford, where 107 days later he eventually drowns unsupervised in a bath.
Obtaining no answers from the Southern Health Trust as to why he died, they eventually launch a campaign for justice and discover along the way how medical negligence and poor communication contributed to his death.
Laughing Boy is firstly a portrait of Connor himself - a young man who generated enormous joy in his family and friends, a boy who was surrounded by laughter and love wherever he went.
The second half of the play details the campaign by Sara, her family and a growing army of supporters to obtain ‘justice for LB’ through inquiries into his treatment and the inquest into his death.
The drama is both personal and political, as Sara Ryan’s impassioned, frank and surprisingly funny story bursts onto the stage for the first time using real-life photographs, news reports and excerpts from her online blog and the medical reports that followed his death.
The set is sparse with just a few chairs and the background is used as a screen to show visual images that illustrate each phase of Connor’s decline and the campaign for justice.
Although Dee and Friedman stay in character, the other five actors play multiple roles, often resorting to cliché and caricature, including sneering health professionals and condescending lawyers.
As Laughing Boy progresses, the play becomes the story of the campaign for justice and its political and social points are hammered home with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
Laughing Boy appears at the Theatre Royal Bath until Saturday, June 8.
Tickets are on sale at the Theatre Royal Box Office on 01225 448844 and online at theatreroyal.org.uk
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