I Told My Mum I Was Going On An R.E. Trip

A new verbatim play about young women and abortion

Frank and funny taboo breaking show about abortion

Young women’s opinions in their own words

Engaging and accessible with live music and spoken word

Award-winning companies 20 Stories High and Contact have joined forces again to co-produce a new verbatim play about young women and abortion.

A multi-talented young female ensemble use verbatim voices, live music, beats and rhyme to portray the stories of real women who’ve experienced pregnancy and abortion. This funny, frank, and moving new play is about as far from a worthy sexual health lecture as is imaginable.

Writer and Co-Artistic Director of 20 Stories High, Julia Samuels, has recorded over 50 interviews with young women, parents, health professionals and campaigners from both sides of the abortion debate to form the basis of the script. One of the interviews gave inspiration for the title of the play:

“I told my Mum I was going on an R.E. trip and I needed to be at Piccadilly Bus Station for seven o’clock in the morning, in order to get to the clinic by half past eight…..” Tanaya

Julia explains; “One in three U.K. women have had an abortion and yet we don’t talk about our experiences. We only ever debate it as an abstract moral issue. In this production we wanted to break that taboo and explore the human stories of the women involved.

“The young people we work with in Liverpool have been crucial in all stages of developing this show. We started out discussing abortion and pregnancy in drama workshops, and now we are delighted that two of our Young Actors Company are performing professionally in the show.”

Because of cultural, moral and legal restraints some of the young women’s stories represented are very moving but there are also many uplifting and life-affirming experiences.

“I was going ‘Oh my God, oh my God, I’m going to have to get an abortion, I’m going to have to get an abortion’….And I was going ‘Is it like how they say on Dirty Dancing?... I was just absolutely convinced that I was going to end up like Penny just like on the bed, with like Patrick Swayze next to me.” Natasha

#onanREtrip