Better to Have Loved...? Has been a labour of love for many years now - I hope that through this play, I can connect with people who have been affected by addiction (either directly or indirectly) and consider how creativity can be a positive aspect on a journey to recovery. Here's the story of how it came about:
Ben was an addict; I knew him from when we were aged 13 - after he died I wrote the p
lay Better to Have Loved...? as a way of processing my feelings about the last 20-years of my life in relation to him. His relationship with drugs was interlinked with his relationship with me - therefore drugs had a massive affect on my life. However, I am not interested in exploring blame or anger or frustration. I am interested in seeing whether something beautiful can come from something really sh*tty. The story is already well-known: In 2010 a video documentary that Ben was creating during the last few years of his life was picked up by Olly Lambert at Sky films and created into a TV documentary called ’Ben: Diary of a He**in Addict’ – this film is available in full on youtube. I filmed much of the initial footage but didn’t want to be part of any subsequent TV or media activity. In 2011 I decided I should start to explore my own feelings about this period of my life and to process them in the form of a piece of theatre – that became ‘Better to Have Loved…?’
I hope that in creating a piece of high-quality live theatre for an audience who are predominantly people who have been affected in some way by addiction (whether directly or indirectly), then it could become a catalyst for them to consider their own creativity and artistic expression as part of a journey to recovery. I am collaborating with local professionals who work with people in addiction recovery programmes and asking them to give feedback throughout the rehearsal and performance process so that we can create a support package of resources alongside the production and hopefully work out how and to what extent this play has the capacity to achieve my aims.
