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How the project began...

Mile End is the first part in a trilogy of new work - staged in Analogue's explosive interdisciplinary approach; the trilogy is inspired by real life stories in the UK that are immediate in their desire to be told, and critical to the cultural landscape that we are part of.

Mile End has been in development for 3 years, and began its life as a short work-in-progress piece at The Young Vic Studio, devised under the title Protect Me From What I Want in 2004. Since its initial incarnation, it has been developed through Scratch performances and Research and Development weeks at venues including BAC, Arts Depot and Lion and the Unicorn.

Where was the show developed/performed?

The Young Vic Studio

February 2004, Protect Me From What I Want, devising development week

Artsdepot

Autumn 2005, SPICE Night developmental showing

BAC

14 May 2006, SCRATCH night

Lion and the Unicorn

20 - 22 July 2006 - developmental performance

Royal Holloway, Studio

24 July 2006 - Edinburgh preview

Pleasance, Edinburgh Festival 2007

1 - 27 August, 2007

Pleasance, Islington

1 - 3 November, 2007

New Wolsey, Ipswich

9 - 10 November, 2007

Spring Tour 2008

London
Southwark Playhouse
4th Feb - 23rd Feb 2008

Glasgow
The Arches
11th Mar - 13th Mar 2008

Liverpool

Unity Theatre
15th Mar 2008

Bracknell

South Hill Park
26th - 27th Mar 2008

Bath
Theatre Royal: Ustinov Studio
28th - 29th Mar 2008

Scarborough

University of Hull - ON THE EDGE season
23rd April 2008

Enfield
Millfield Theatre
30th April 2008

Original programme note - July 2006

In August 2002, as we took our first show to the Edinburgh Fringe,
a man from Poplar, East London was trying to get himself sectioned
under the Mental Health Act. Psychiatrists agreed that Stephen
Soans-Wade showed some abnormal and anti-social traits but not
sufficient to have him detained.

In mid-September, we were beginning to put ourselves through
drama school, living in a shared house in East London. Not far away
at Mile End tube station, a French security guard, Christophe
Duclos, lay dying on the tracks, his left arm severed, having been
pushed in the path of an underground train by Stephen Soans-Wade.

In 2004, we decided to make a short piece of work inspired by
aspects of this story at the Young Vic. By chance - the day of the
performance was also the first day of Soans-Wade's trial.

We presented a work-in-progress at the Lion & Unicorn in London,
in summer 2006. During rehearsals, Mehmet Bala pushed John Curran

onto the rails at Highbury and Islington, and there was an outcry when

Dennis Foskett, a former psychiatric inmate, stabbed his girlfriend to

death while on early release.

With hindsight, everything seems inevitable. Soans-Wade was
always going to kill Duclos. John Curran would always have died
on the rails. Dennis Foskett was always going to find himself
standing in his kitchen with a bloody knife in his hand. The signs
were there, we tell ourselves, why couldn't people see? But to
think of our own futures like that - to think that they stretch out
before us as plain and unchangeable as a tarmac road - is
intolerable. We have choices, we tell ourselves, we are all free.

When we started making this piece, we had no idea it would end
up asking questions about fate and freedom, about options and
omens. But maybe this was always going to be, just as maybe you
were always going to see this show, before you booked, before
you heard about it, before you got to work, before you got on the
train...

Liam & Hannah, Co-Artistic directors

Analogue, 12 Harpesford Avenue, Virginia Water, Surrey, GU25 4RD