DETENTION

Gary Clarke Company proudly presents their highly anticipated new dance theatre show, DETENTION, following the multi award-winning COAL and critically acclaimed WASTELAND.

DETENTION explores the impact of Section 28: a piece of largely hidden legislation from Thatcher’s Conservative Government in 1988, which ‘prohibited the promotion of homosexuality’, forcing people from the LGBT+ community into a place of secrecy, fear and shame at a time when the country was in industrial turmoil and the gay community was being ravaged by the onslaught of AIDS.

Gary Clarke’s powerful and personal working-class storytelling draws on public and private stories and testimonies, including a rare insight into the LGBT+ Switchboard Logbooks, combined with vivid choreography performed by a company of exceptional dancers, an evocative narrator, a local cast of LGBT+ people, striking designs in film, sound, light and costume and music tracks by the iconic band Test Dept.

DETENTION is a bold and moving exploration of the violence, loneliness, protests, debates, unlikely allies and the remarkable individuals and organisations of the time.