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    Hard to Swallow: New edition with bonus features
    Hard to Swallow: New edition with bonus features
    Hard to Swallow: New edition with bonus features
    Ebook147 pages1 hour

    Hard to Swallow: New edition with bonus features

    By Mark Wheeller

    ()

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    About this ebook

    2020 Edition

    Suitable text for GCSE 9-1 Drama

    Based on Maureen Dunbar’s award-winning book and film Catherine: The Story of a Young Girl Who Died of Anorexia Nervosa. Catherine Dunbar died in 1984, after a seven-year battle against anorexia nervosa. She was just twenty-two.

    Mark Wheeller’s potent documentary play uses the words from Catherine’s diaries and also of those most closely involved and affected. 

    This 2020 edition includes a foreword by the late Maureen Dunbar, unseen extra scenes and a reflection by Mark, on the astonishing journey of this widely studied play since its first performances, including one by OYT on the Olivier Stage of the Royal National Theatre.

    Suitable for: Key Stage 3/4, BTEC, GCSE
    Duration: 75 minutes approximately

    Cast: 6 female, 3 male, 22 female/male, or 3 female and 2 male with doubling.

    “This play reaches moments of almost unbearable intensity… naturalistic scenes flow seamlessly into sequences of highly stylised theatre… such potent theatre!”

    Vera Lustig, The Independent

    “Elegantly structured, highly informative, and imaginatively theatrical. There wasn't a dry eye in the house.”

    Anne McFerran, Stage and Television Today

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSalamander Street Ltd.
    Release dateJul 2, 2020
    ISBN9781913630256
    Hard to Swallow: New edition with bonus features
    Author

    Mark Wheeller

    Mark Wheeller began writing whilst a student at Marlwood Comprehensive School, Bristol. After teaching drama for thirty-six years he retired in July 2015 to concentrate on writing and delivering Drama/Theatre workshops to students and teachers across the world. Mark is one of the most-performed playwrights in Britain. Too Much Punch For Judy has been performed over 6,000 times and Chicken nearly 6,000. Missing Dan Nolan and Hard to Swallow are both set texts for the GSCE Drama 9-1 exams. His work has been a staple part of the Drama curriculum both in the UK and abroad for the past three decades. Professional productions of Hard to Swallow, I Love You Mum, I Promise I Won’t Die and Chicken regularly tour schools and many of Mark’s works are available on DVD, with digital formats forthcoming in late 2020.  His study guides include Drama Schemes, The Story Behind Too Much Punch For Judy, Drama Club & Hard to Swallow – Easy to Digest. He has three children and lives just outside the New Forest, with his wife Rachael, and Labrador, Dusty.

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      Book preview

      Hard to Swallow - Mark Wheeller

      First published 1991 by Cambridge University Press (reprinted five times between then and 1999). ISBN 0521399377

      A revised edition was first published by dbda in 2000; Reprinted in January 2003 and November 2003; Further revised edition published in March 2006 and reprinted in March 2008 by Zinc Communicate ISBN 978 1 9028 4308 7

      This edition first published in 2020 by Salamander Street Ltd.,

      272 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 4JR (info@salamanderstreet.com)

      Hard to Swallow © Mark Wheeller and Maureen Dunbar, 1991

      Photograph appears with kind permission of Maureen Dunbar’s family.

      All rights reserved.

      All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved and application for performance etc. should be made before rehearsal to MBA Literary Agents Ltd, 62 Grafton Way, London W1T 5DW (attn: Sophie Gorell Barnes).

      No performance may be given unless a license has been obtained.

      You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or binding or by any means (print, electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

      PB ISBN: 9781913630249

      E ISBN: 9781913630256

      Cover and text design by Konstantinos Vasdekis

      Printed and bound in Great Britain

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      Further copies of this publication can be purchased from

      www.salamanderstreet.com

      CONTENTS

      Introduction by Maureen Dunbar (2000)

      Introduction for the original 1990 CUP publication

      Introduction for the revised 2000 dbda edition

      Introduction for the 2020 Salamander Street Edition

      A Reflection on the Touring Production by TiE It Up Theatre

      Ann’s Story

      A Note from Anna Smith

      Hard to Swallow

      Crossing the Bridge

      Hunchback, believed to be by Catherine Dunbar

      Acknowledgements

      Maureen Dunbar for support, guidance and advice.

      John, Richard, Simon, Catherine (diaries), Anna Smith and Maureen Dunbar for permission to use their words.

      Dr Tony Saunders for his medical expertise.

      Sophie Gorell Barnes and MBA Literary Agents for their continued interest in my work.

      Thanks to George Spender and those in the Salamander Street team for their efforts to extend the reach of my plays.

      The writing team for the very first working script, then entitled Catherine was: Donna Batt, Martin Blackman, Sarah Blackman, Richard Brown, Paula Curtis, Jason Eames, Debbie Giles, Deanne McAteer, Kate Noss, Abigail Penny, Gary Richards, Kalwant Singh, Andrew Stott, Sharon Tanner, Chris Vaudin.

      Introduction by Maureen Dunbar (2000)

      My first meeting with Mark Wheeller was at the Oaklands Community School in Southampton. The reason for my visit was to decide whether or not to place my trust in him and allow him to write a play based on my book Catherine, the story of my daughter’s fight with anorexia nervosa. No one, I thought, could convey the torment and agony of those seven years of illness.

      Talking to Mark, I knew instinctively that here was a man I could say a total Yes to, I knew I would trust him implicitly. I could see too, how his young drama group drew inspiration from their gifted teacher.

      I have followed the progress of Hard to Swallow from its earliest beginnings. I have never failed to be moved by the sensitive performances and also by the certain knowledge that Catherine’s story has helped so many people and opened channels that did not exist before her death.

      People have asked me whether I found putting pen to paper to be therapeutic – I can only say no, I did not. It was agonising. Agonising because I could see all the mistakes, the terrible mess, much more clearly in hindsight – the mistakes of doctors and my own mistakes in particular. The frustration, anger and despair that I felt many times during Catherine’s illness were magnified in me as I wrote. The whole exercise was extremely painful. I wrote the book in tears.

      For me the burden of grief was enormous because of the additional suffering I had caused Catherine by insisting on many occasions that she should go into hospital for treatment. When she first became ill, I had never heard of anorexia, neither had Catherine. Nobody I knew had heard of it either. During the seven long years of Catherine’s illness I was always expecting doctors to come up with an answer, no one really explained what was happening to her, no one recommended books for me to read, and family counselling was never suggested. Only in writing about Catherine, after her death, did I see how wrong the treatment had been for her. How naive I had been in expecting an answer – where there was no answer. While she was alive, I was so busy trying to help, support and understand Catherine, trying to get help and treatment for her, that I was unable to stand back, try to appraise the situation and be objective.

      All of these things I understood as I wrote – IN HINDSIGHT. The picture in my mind was of one huge tragic mess. The pain and grief I felt as I wrote was inexpressible. But, gradually, as I continued to put my feelings on paper, I also saw more clearly how things might have been different had I known more and also had I followed my own heart. This only added to my guilt. These thoughts and feelings, I believe, were in the deep recesses of my mind but because I had been so desperate in my search for an answer to Catherine’s illness, I had never allowed them to surface – only in writing was this able to happen.

      Simon, my eldest son, by encouraging me to write Catherine’s story, gave me a very positive thing to do, though an extremely difficult, emotional and agonising one. Catherine’s wish was that her life and death should help others. The fruits of the book have been tremendous. Many parents have written to me and said how much better they understand their children who have this frightful illness. Anorexics have told me how much more aware they are of their families’ suffering. Professionals have said they have learnt what not to do. One person wrote Catherine has disturbed the waters of our lives and made us look into the integrity of our relationships. So the book, which I initially believed could not help anyone because Catherine’s was not a success story, has helped hundreds of people. Most especially, it has helped many to come to terms with their illness and removed guilt when they do not have the power to change. It has sometimes acted as a jolt to some with anorexia and aided them to start climbing the ladder to recovery.

      The play Hard to Swallow has added in no small measure to all that is good and constructive as a result of my dear Catherine’s death. My trust in Mark has been richly rewarded.

      Maureen Dunbar

      2000

      Introduction for the original 1990 CUP publication

      I hadn’t heard of anorexia until I was twenty years old. My secondary school education had provided

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