IT’S not very often that David Bowie and the Bay City Rollers get mentioned in the same breath, but they both feature in the soundtrack of the central character’s life in Butterfly, a brand new show tackling the stigma around mental health conditions.

Butterfly is the first professional production created during the Cultural Shift programme at ARC Stockton. The project aims to challenge commonly held perceptions of disability and disabled people and also to increase opportunities for disabled people to take part in the arts.

Written and directed by Vici Wreford-Sinnott, the one-woman play stars Jacqueline Phillips, who has an accomplished track record in theatre, TV and film work, including appearances in Emmerdale and TV crime dramas George Gently and Vera.

Vici, who has carved a successful career in ground-breaking theatre, said: “Butterfly is a play about the history of stigma, and is never more relevant in today’s climate, with figures rising all the time of those experiencing mental health distress. This new piece tackles the stigma surrounding mental health head on and aims to set the record straight.

“Beatrice is the play’s central character, an unlikely heroine, and all she ever wanted was a quiet life, to stay under the radar and not the microscope. Now, sitting in isolation, waiting for the outcome of a forced mental health assessment, she revisits a personal history she can only just remember, and examines the corner she feels she has been painted into”.

As with her critically acclaimed 2015 ARC production of The Art of Not Getting Lost, Vici’s new play is again partly based on her own experiences. Vici said, “I’m passionate that we create spaces to enable people to tell their own stories. It’s important to speak out both about mental health conditions as there should be no shame, but also about the cuts in services which are severely impacting on peoples’ lives.”

Vici is interested in the power of culture to bring about change, and has always championed disability equality and challenged discrimination and prejudice in her work. Her new play is supported by ARC’s Cultural Shift Programme funded by the Spirit of 2012, which is creating increased and improved opportunities for disabled people to get involved in the arts.

  • Butterfly, Arts Centre Washington on Thursday, March 9, at 7.30pm. Tickets are from £6 and are available from www.artscentrewashington.co.uk or by calling 0191-561 3455.
  • Northern Stage, Newcastle, Tuesday, March 21. Box office 0191-2305151 or www.northernstage.co.uk