Never Better

‘Never Better’

This exciting and ambitious one year project looked at both the history of mental health provision in Gloucestershire, and people living with mental health issues today.

Who was involved?

· Led by Gloucestershire Archives in partnership with Gloucester History Festival, Strike a Light and GUST

· Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Wellcome Trust

What were the aims?

· Raise awareness of mental health issues and treatments past and present

· Raise awareness of Gloucestershire’s pioneering role in the field of mental health

· Encourage new communities, including people with mental ill health, to engage with and discover their past

· Encourage high quality cultural activity in the city

What did you do?

· Project team plus transcribers, directors, producers, actors, musicians, architects, a community gatherer & community choir developed a creative response to historic and contemporary narratives.

· Historic dimension drew on unusually rich mental health collections held at Gloucestershire Archives. Patient case notes from Victorian and Edwardian asylums were transcribed by 12 trained volunteers and sent to a professional writer/director as raw material for a drama based on the unheard voices of former asylum inmates.

· Final piece included site-specific installations & specially commissioned music.

· Community gatherer recorded interviews with 12 Gloucestershire people with lived experience of mental health issues

What were the outcomes?

· An innovative piece of immersive theatre was performed at the 2019 Gloucester History festival, then toured

· Attended by over 200 people, with help from around 60 volunteers

· £500 in audience donations raised for local mental health charities

· The interviews recorded by the community gatherer are permanently preserved in Gloucestershire Archives.