 |
The Hollywood star Hugh Grant has acted in a play called The Drama Group.
The Drama Group is a play about a young man with an intellectual disability who wants to become an actor but is not sure. Hugh Grant wrote this play with a woman called Sheila Hollins and her son Nigel. Nigel is an actor for the Baked Bean Theatre Company. The Baked Bean Theatre Company is made up of 25 actors with intellectual disabilities. The actors were very excited to be able to act with a Hollywood Star. The play is based on a book especially made for adults with intellectual disabilities. It has a lot of beautiful pictures that make the story interesting. If you want to read the book you can click here.
|
Hollywood star Hugh Grant, along with the Baked Bean Theatre Company, has premiered the play The Drama Group. The show is based on a book co-written by Hugh Grant, Sheila Hollins and her son Nigel, who is an actor with an intellectual disability.
The Drama Group explores the life of a young man with an intellectual disability who has recently discovered his passion for the world of acting, but is unsure of whether he has the confidence to get in the business.
The Baked Bean Theatre Company, a collective of 25 actors with intellectual disabilities, has embraced the play with open arms. According to Jade Hardrade-Grosz, who co-founded the acting company with her husband Nikko, the actors genuinely enjoyed the experience: “You see them literally blossom in front of your eyes. People with a learning difficulty spend a lot of their lives being told what they can’t do, but we concentrate on what they can do. Any actor gets a huge buzz from the recognition, the applause: and with our actors you see a physical and emotional change in them post-performance. It really does buoy them up in an amazing way.”
The Drama Group book is part of Baroness Sheila Hollin’s Books Beyond Words Series.  The story is told in pictures to help adults with intellectual disabilities explore and understand their own experiences.
Sheila found this gap in the market 25 years ago and decided to do something about it. She said: “I set up Books Beyond Words because when I was bringing Nigel up I realised that the communication tools available for people with learning disabilities fell far short of what’s needed for them to lead a fulfilled and safe life. The information simply wasn’t being put across in an accessible way and I realised it could only be done using pictures, which could then prompt their readers to properly engage with, and understand, the messages”.
The Drama Group was performed at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London on 13 January.
