Broken Little Heart

Posted byLouise BeechPosted inUncategorized

The Roaring Girls are a Hull-based theatre company, comprising the best northern lasses you could hope to meet, actresses Jess Morley and Rachael Abbey, and also Lizi Perry, and for recent show – Broken Little Robots – composer and musical director James Frewer.

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Working as an usher at Hull Truck theatre means I get to see a mind-boggling array of shows, but some of my favourites have been performed – often as one-offs – in the intimate studio space. On Friday I saw in there a small show with a huge heart; Broken Little Robots.

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Credit to Facet Photography for picture

The Roaring Girls debuted the show at Assemblefest in 2015, where my husband and I caught it. I knew it was something special then; goosebumps never lie. Nor does the heart. Developed for Hull Truck from the 20 minute ‘skit’ into an hour-long show, Broken Little Robots deals with depression. Living with it. Laughing at it. Challenging it. Most of all, talking about it.

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Through song, honest and blunt monologue, and little scenes, the girls bravely lay bare their own experiences, and the result is emotional, powerful, and ultimately uplifting. My own mother attempted suicide when I was nine, so serious it resulted in a year-long hospital stay where my siblings and I went into care/to live with our grandmother. My mum – and other members of my family – have struggled on and off with mental health issues. So it needs to be talked about. Shared. Cried over. Laughed at. And the Roaring Girls are shining a hearty light on the darkness of such issues.

I hope the show gets another run. If it does, go and see it. You owe it to yourselves, to those you love, to the world.

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Photo credit to facet Photography

Published by Louise Beech

I remember sitting in my musician father's cross-legged lap while he tried to show me the guitar chords. I was three. His music sheets fascinated me - strange language that translated into music. My mother taught French and English, so her fluency with words fired my interest. I love all forms of writing. My short stories have won the Glass Woman Prize, the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose, and the Aesthetica Creative Works competition, as well as shortlisting twice for the Bridport Prize and being published in a variety of UK magazines. My first play, Afloat, was performed at Hull Truck Theatre in 2012. I also wrote a ten-year newspaper column for the Hull Daily Mail about being a parent. My debut novel, How to be Brave, was a Guardian Readers' pick for 2015. My third novel Maria in the Moon was described as ‘quirky, darkly comic and heartfelt’ by the Sunday Mirror; The Lion Tamer Who Lost shortlisted for the Popular Romantic Novel of 2019 at the RNA Awards and longlisted for the Polari Prize 2019; Call Me Star Girl longlisted for the Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize and was Best magazine’s Best Book of the Year 2019; and I Am Dust was a Crime Magazine Monthly Pick. This Is How We Are Human was a Clare Mackintosh Book of the Month. Daffodils, the audiobook of my memoir, and Nothing Else were released 2022. End of Story (as Louise Swanson) and the paperback version of my memoir, Eighteen Seconds, were released in 2023.

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