WHEN it comes to subject matter Sick! Festival 2015 isn’t pulling any punches. Duncan Hall talks to director of development Tim Harrison about the second instalment of the month-long festival, and picks out some of the highlights.

LAST year the inaugural Sick! Festival examined what can happen to us all in the course of a life – adolescence, mental illness, ageing and death.

Now the focus has shifted to ways individuals can be harmed through outside forces.

“We wanted to explore how we are all responsible for each other’s well-being,” says Sick! Festival’s director of development Tim Harrison about 2015’s themes of sex and sexuality, abuse and suicide.

“Suicide can be the result of our social conditions, isolation and the people who get left behind by society. That responsibility we all have is at the heart of the festival.”

This year also sees Sick! Festival double in size. A parallel festival is running in Manchester at the same time, featuring many of the same artists.

“It means we can bring international work to both locations,” says Harrison, pointing to the award-winning Nirbhaya – one of the biggest coups for this year’s festival - which is travelling to the UK from India.

The play, penned by South Africa’s Yael Farber, is based on a true story which shocked the world. In December 2012 a young woman was brutally gang-raped and murdered after catching what she thought was a bus to her New Delhi home after a trip to the cinema.

The play tells real stories of domestic and sexual abuse from eight Indian women’s experiences. On its premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe it won the Amnesty Freedom Of Expression Award, as well as a Scotsman Fringe First and a Herald Angel.

“It is an incredibly powerful piece,” says Harrison. “It’s our ambition to bring more works of that quality and scale to Sick!.”

Alongside the performance is a post-show discussion with Dr Aisha K Gill, associate professor in criminology at the University of Roehampton.

“The play feeds into many women’s experiences in this country,” says Harrison.

“We are working with charities and survivors of abuse in the UK.”

Many of the shows within the Sick! programme have post-show discussions with healthcare professionals, academics and charities to further explore the issues raised.

“There was so much enthusiasm for the festival within the city last year,” says Harrison. “In total 15 out of the 20 shows sold out – we were at more than 95 per cent capacity for the whole programme.

“But people were not just turning up, they were really keen to share their own quite personal experiences within the festival – it was quite a powerful experience.”

Linking in with that idea is the Rise Living Library, which is taking over Jubilee Library on Thursday, March 12.

The free series of one-to-one performances will see survivors of domestic abuse, the police and charities coming together to tell their real life stories in 15-minute frank and open conversations.

“Sick! is always about human experience and art,” says Harrison. “But it’s a way of talking about issues with scientists, doctors and people with charities who bring a different perspective.

“Sick!’s responses to the difficult challenges will sometimes be humorous and sometimes uplifting in the work we present. At other times it will be about acknowledging that sometimes things are difficult.”

The festival’s sex and sexuality theme links in with The Wellcome Trust’s year-long Sexology Season, which is bringing a unique free cinema space, based in a shipping container, to Jubilee Square.

The Screening Container will feature short films, documentaries and video installations exploring all three of the festival’s themes.

Another new strand sees theatre director turned crime writer Julia Crouch bring her crime literature festival Dark And Stormy to Sick!.

An investigation of sex and sexuality will feature erotic author Emily Dubberly, graphic novelist Gareth Brookes, and Middlesex University’s professor of cultural studies Feona Attwood on Saturday, March 7.

A discussion of abuse on Saturday, March 14 will have contributions from writer Damian Barr, clinical psychologist Tanya Byron and graphic novelist Katie Green whose striking book Lighter Than My Shadow details her struggle with anorexia.

Crouch will chair the last debate Is It Catching? on Saturday, March 21, investigating copycat suicides with former cognitive psychotherapist Dr Alec Grant, screenwriter Matt Haig discussing his memoir Reasons To Stay Alive and novelist Hannah Vincent whose Alarm Girl is about a youngster coming to terms with her mother’s suicide.

“There is a real mix of writers,” says Harrison. “They will be quite feisty discussions.”

A pair of child-focused UK premieres will only come to Brighton.

The dance piece Victor by Jan Martens sees an adult man and a child perform alongside each other at The Old Market.

And Kabinet K’s Rauw/Raw sees a gang of youngsters stand up straight against the constant, invisible threats of the world.

“Children are often more capable of dealing with more important issues than we give them credit for,” says Harrison. “Kabinet K tries to make work appropriate for children, but also appropriate for adults too.”

Harrison says Sick! Festival is likely to become biennial in future years.

“We are only a team of three people doing a festival in two cities,” he says. “We want to go deeper to make the festival as fantastic as we want it to be – commissioning artists to do research and development.

“We will still very much have a presence in the city in the other years – we will fit in with World Mental Health Day in October and pitch in with some of the other amazing festivals in Brighton.”

 

Essential information

Nirbhaya Brighton Dome Corn Exchange, Tuesday, March 10, and Wednesday, March 11, 8pm, tickets £15/£12.50.

Rise Living Library Jubilee Library, Jubilee Square, Brighton, Thursday, March 12, 2pm to 5pm, free.

Screening Container Jubilee Square, Brighton, Monday, March 2, to Wednesday, March 25, free, see sickfestival.com for film schedule.

Dark And Stormy Festival The Basement, Kensington Street, Brighton, Saturdays, March 7 to March 21, 4pm, £8/£5 each.

Victor The Old Market, Upper Market Street, Hove, Tuesday, March 24, 8pm, £12/£10.

Rauw/Raw The Old Market, Upper Market Street, Hove, Saturday, March 14, 8pm, £12/£10.

Call 01273 699733 or visit sickfestival.com