Sugar
An intimate piece of theatre made for screen
Written by Catrina McHugh MBE
Directed by Laura Lindow
Camera Direction by Katja Roberts
In partnership with Meerkat Films
In association with Live Theatre
Supported by The Space
“An unflinching filmed drama about society’s failings powered by gripping performances from an all-female cast” The Stage
“I was always going to end up here… but not anymore. This is my last time.”
A probation office, a prison cell, a homeless shelter… Sugar is set in an abstract world where we meet three women all ‘doing time’ in very different ways, caught in a waiting space of continuous floors and revolving doors. Three survivors. Three voices seldom heard.
Meet Annie, Julie and Tracy as we circle around their stories in an unflinching trilogy which honours the hard realities of lives lived in and around the system.
Presented by Open Clasp Theatre Company, the award-winning company who brought you Key Change and Rattle Snake and in association with Live Theatre, Sugar is an intimate piece of theatre made for film, devised with women who are homeless, on probation or in prison.
“This is an important and urgent piece of theatre, a state of the nation, and it asks audiences to step into the shoes of women and to see the world through their eyes.”
Sugar previewed a First Stage Development tour in 2017. Building on the success of their relationship with HMP Low Newton, Durham, during Key Change, Open Clasp returned to the prison in with a new project. They were one of three groups, the other being women in a hostel providing emergency accommodation in Manchester, Women’s Direct Access and women on probation attending a Women’s Hub in Newcastle (West End Women & Girls Centre and Changing Lives).
