Sounding Out: Listening Session

Join us for Walking the Wing, an audio play about incarceration during the COVID 19 pandemic created with men serving prison sentences, prison staff, and people with lived experience of the criminal justice system. The audio play will be followed by a Q&A with the makers. 

‘And then I feel.

Like there’s no air and

Everything just feels tight’.

In March 2020 the UK Prison Service began operating an Exceptional Regime Management Plan to try and prevent a mass COVID 19 outbreak in the prison estate. The realities of this regime for people who are incarcerated has often meant periods of prolonged isolation, a lack of family contact, limited access to showers and outdoor space, and very little engagement in education and rehabilitation activities. This has prompted widespread concern around the human rights, wellbeing, and mental health of those held in prison and the increased pressure on the prison system.

Sounding Out is an audio project that seeks to document, understand, and disseminate experiences of incarceration during COVID 19. This listening session will be the first airing of Walking the Wing, an audio play created by playwright Sophia Hatfield and prison theatre practitioner Saul Hewish in collaboration with men serving sentences and staff at HMP Hewell, alongside people with experience of the criminal justice system, and academic Dr Sarah Bartley. The piece is performed by people with lived experience of incarceration and supported by the Prison Reform Trust. The audio work will be followed by a live Q&A with artists and performers involved in the work.

Content Warning: This audio play contains reference to self harm, mental health issues, and drug use. 

Contributors

Rideout (Creative Arts for Rehabilitation), Prison Reform Trust, Sophia Hatfield and Department of Film Theatre and Television at The University of Reading.