Next week audience members watching the Performing Arts students’ latest production Mobile Phone Show, will be invited to keep their mobile phones on throughout the performance. Described by playwright Jim Cartwright as “A communication cacophony, a fully charged up chorus line of chaos in a rhapsody of rap, text, tweet and gabble”, the production includes a mixture of drama, song and movement.

The play revolves around how young people use their phones to communicate and how this has taken precedence over any other form of communication and is being performed by students studying BTEC Level 2 Diploma in Performing Arts.

“Young people don’t talk face to face anymore – their main form of communication is via texts or phone calls,” said Dan Thompson, Lecturer for Media, Sound and Performing Arts. “I just felt that the production was a particularly appropriate play for our young people because they’re always on their mobile phones – they have us constantly telling them not to use them and this is their opportunity to use them in a good way."

"A lot of the ideas for staging came from the students themselves and there’s a lot of audience participation as well with the audience actually being invited to leave their mobile phones on for once instead of turning them off," added Dan. "The idea is that most of the cast act like a Greek chorus and we have different scenes that tail spin out of that Greek chorus which help us to tell the story. It’s been quite a short project and we have only been rehearsing for about 5 weeks, so the students have had a lot to do in a short space of time.”

The performances will be on Tuesday 3rd June at 2.30pm & 6.30pm, email performingarts@cwc.ac.uk for tickets.