Huddersfield's Dark Horse theatre company celebrates 21st birthday with new play

Amy Cunningham, the company’s creative director, says: “It started as a conversation with our actors about what to do for our 21st birthday; and we talked about what happens when a person turns 21. We talked about the rules and what it means when you become an adult, it was a great conversation starter. Our actors had a lot of opinions on that. We interviewed our young company about their lives, ambitions, the obstacles, what it means to be an adult, and it went from there.”Dark Horse has an ensemble of nine actors with learning disabilities and has been making preconception-busting work since 1998. It was originally founded in that year as Full Body and the Voice, undergoing a rebranding and changing its name in 2012 to become Dark Horse.

“Our actor-theatre makers are highly skilled, highly creative, physical performers. Our company members have worked on a number of high profile shows, recently working on the Shane Meadows-directed Gallows Pole, Oliver Twist at Leeds Playhouse – some of our actors have been acting since I was in primary school. I joined Dark Horse as young company manager, running the community activity and discovered I really enjoyed it, running the Saturday morning sessions, so it was a privilege to take on the role of creative director,” says Cunningham. “I can’t imagine working with any other theatre company.”

There are, it’s impossible to ignore, preconceptions that Dark Horse has to deal with that other theatre companies don’t, when it comes to attracting an audience. Cunningham doesn’t shy away from the subject and places the onus for misplaced preconceptions about work made by and with learning disabled actors on society as opposed to individuals.

“People often get with our shows a massive reversal of preconceptions. One of my friends came to watch a development showing of our latest piece, he’s a heating engineer and afterwards he didn’t really say anything about the show and left quite quickly,” says Cunningham

“A week later I was talking to him and I asked what he thought and he told me that he was a bit shell shocked. He said he didn’t consider that someone with a learning disability ‘could do that’. I told him that it was fantastic that he was having this change in the way he was thinking about this kind of thing – it’s nobody’s fault that he was thinking that way, it’s to do with representation and the lack of it and it was great that he was open and had his preconceptions challenged in that way. That’s the reaction people often have to our shows.”

Audiences will have a chance to challenge those perceptions when Unit 21 opens this week in Huddersfield before heading out on tour. “We started the conversations as the company was turning 21, and then we had the pandemic, so there’s been a lot of developing the piece on Zoom ahead of the rehearsal room,” says Cunningham. “It’s essentially been five years in the making, so it’s pretty well polished by now.”

Using digital media, animation and a twisting narrative, the piece begins with Ally celebrating her 21st birthday, but in an Alice in Wonderland-esque journey, her night descends into a haze of expectations versus reality. Cunningham says: “The ensemble spent months interviewing adults and young people from the learning-disabled community and beyond, using this research to inspire the development of the show and the live polling that audiences can access on their mobile phones.

“Sci-fi films and dystopian fiction were used as anchors to explore movement, creating a grotesque meets Bob Fosse physicality . The priority of this show is to display a new and progressive form of theatre that uses animation to make concepts more accessible to people with learning-disabilities, whilst also creating stunning visuals.”

Unit 21 is at Huddersfield’s Lawrence Batley Theatre tonight and tomorrow. It is at Chroma Q, Leeds, March 10 and The Junction, Goole, March 15. Details and tickets darkhorsetheatre.co.uk/productions/