Preview: For the Best? at Arts Centre Washington

For the Best?

Arts Centre Washington

Thursday 12th February

The NHS promises equal health care for all. But that’s not the case according to a thought-provoking drama at the Arts Centre Washington.

Operating Theatre actress

Louise  Dearden who plays

the angry careworker

in For the Best

The provocatively titled ‘For the Best’ suggests the NHS demonstrates an uncaring attitude towards people with learning disability, in particular women who die on average 20 years earlier than the rest of the population.

‘It’s a shocking fact that according to a confidential enquiry last year 37 per cent of the deaths of people with learning disability might have been avoided if those people had received the level of health care on offer to the rest of us,’ says ‘For the Best’ director Alex Elliott.

‘Everyone knows there are immense pressures on the NHS which makes it increasingly important that people with learning disability should not be forgotten and treated as somehow less important when it comes to health care.’

The play, is the work of Operating Theatre, a north-east based company which specialises in drama on health and social care issues. It was written after considerable research, talking to people with learning disability, to doctors and other health care professionals involved in the field.  At its heart is the relationship between a woman with learning disability and her care worker who is angry at the poor treatment the woman receives and which is responsible for the tragedy which occurs.

Operating Theatre’s radical way of working means that the audience will be able to have their say on the issue in a facilitated discussion which will form part of the performance. 

On The Web:

Website:  http://operatingtheatre.org.uk/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/OperatingThtr

Tickets:

For The Best is on at Arts Centre Washington on Thursday 12^thFebruary at 7.30pm.

Tickets are £7.50 or £5 for Concessions and are available from www.artscentrewashington.co.ukor by calling 0191 219 3455