PUBLISHED 28 November 2022
Performance Review by Miranda & Jess
On the 13th of October AKS students were invited to a performance of AKS Alumni Rachel Hammond’s Edinburgh fringe show ‘Joshua and Me’. Described as a “masterclass of human emotion”, it tells the story of Hannah, a Blackpool girl growing up with an autistic brother.
The heart-warming narrative depicts the challenges of navigating a close relationship with her elder brother Joshua, exploring how the family’s life evolves as Joshua grows. The arguments, reconciliations, rules, and routines were illustrated throughout the performance with vocals, guitar, piano and saxophone on a multi-track recorder. This innovative soundscape mirrored the complexity of the network of rules Hannah had to follow at home, and the busy nature of the recording shows the strain of her anxiety to keep the structure.
The set design was simple but effective, with mats representing rooms, which created a flexible performance environment encouraging the art of mime and a vibrant imagination. Hammond’s acting brought the rooms to life, and her expertly subtle changes in physicality throughout the play gave the impression that the audience really was watching a little girl grow up.
As well as her brother, the show represents a close grandfather and granddaughter relationship, going to the Blackpool football club games and playing music with her grandfather. The death of her grandfather marks a change in tone of the play as she supresses her emotions to help her brother not feel alone. For the first time we see how her brother’s neurodiversity has a clear effect on Hannah’s well-being.
The understanding and love that is nurtured throughout the play between Hannah’s family is moving and affectionate and shows the coming together of love and flexibility of differences. The realisation that Joshua will always be a responsibility for Hannah in her life could have been portrayed as daunting and drowning, but the care and compassion Hannah has for her brother makes the ending reassuring and uplifting. The show highlights the untold story of siblings of those with neurodiversity and the compromises required of each family member.
Thank you to Rachel Hammond for giving AKS pupils the opportunity to see such a wonderful production of professional theatre.
Pupil Quotes
“The play was amazingly performed by only one actor which showed all the skills we learned in the workshop.” – Charlie Year 9
“An amazing display of acting and musical prowess.” – Jacob Year 10
"Enlightening on the aspects of autism." – Rhys Year 10
Workshop Overview by Hiruni
The ‘Joshua and Me’ workshop began with some warmups that helped everyone feel ready and for some it allowed them to feel less apprehensive and nervous. This was later followed, by Rachel teaching us different ways we could create emotion in a piece, for example she suggested that we should be either a mole or a magpie meaning we either take something from our own lives or we use something we had seen in history or on the news. This was interesting to learn about as it showed us that we can take inspiration from a variety of things to help improve our drama performances. Next, she asked us to use the knowledge we had just learnt to create a drama piece with a protagonist and an antagonist. To help with this task, she also taught us a basic drama performance structure and used key words like exposition, rising action and climax.
Afterwards, everyone was split into groups where we were given roles on how we were going to participate in the next activity. These roles included: 2 actors, a director, an assistant director, a musical director, and an artistic director. With these roles we had to complete the task of making a scene from the director’s story. Other than acting, the group had to pick background music and a had to make a poster with the help of the artistic and musical director. Finally, once everyone’s scenes were finished, we all took turns performing to each other which allowed us to see all the techniques we just learned be used practically.
This workshop allowed me to learn so much, in such fun ways and has really showed me why Drama is such a good subject and now I am especially excited to study it at GCSE level. Additionally, it allowed me to see there are many sides of Drama beyond just acting.
Pupil Quotes
“I loved the workshop it made me feel like an actual playwright!” – Charlie Year 9
"Extremely fun and active. Very inspiring." – Rhys Year10
“A good workshop to help with writers block, it really inspired me to write a story.”- Jacob Year10