5 - 24 Feb 2019

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Persever Productions present

Tokens of Affection

by Maureen Lawrence

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Persever Productions brings you the London premier of Tokens of Affection by Maureen Lawrence.

This often witty and disarmingly charming play is also a startling theatrical peek into the world of a special teaching unit for the containment of violent or maladjusted girls in Bradford in the nineteen-eighties. 

Seen through the eyes of a recently qualified social care professional, the day centre is a place of chaos and struggle with no real sense of what it is trying to achieve, apart from keeping the girls off the streets. But it is also a place of high energy and laughter, small glimmers of hope come from the humour and wit intrinsic in the plays’ younger characters as, even though almost broken by circumstances, their resilience is astounding. The small tokens of affection can be found in the very human interactions between these disturbed children and their over-worked and under-supported carers.

This ‘lost’ work by Maureen Lawrence, playwright, author, and former Derby Playhouse writer in residence, has not been produced since its original production at Derby Playhouse in 1990.

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Reviews of original 1990 production
“Perhaps the most shocking thing about the […] production is that it is so savagely entertaining.”

Tim Brown

“There are rare theatrical occasions of such complete absorption that the outside world does not exist.”

On Stage 

“what fills the evening is the varied behaviour of children and staff.  There is affection hidden in the approaches both of girls and staff…” B A Young Financial Times 
 

Ages 18+

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