Gary Clarke Company Announces New Work DETENTION UK Tour

Gary Clarke COMPANY will return with a new dance theatre show, DETENTION, to premiere and tour the UK from May 2025.

In 1988, a piece of legislation from Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government devastated lives… Forcing people from the LGBT+ community into a place of secrecy, fear and shame at a time when the country was in industrial turmoil and the gay community was being ravaged by the onslaught of AIDS.

DETENTION is a bold and moving new work by Gary Clarke COMPANY, following the multi award-winning COAL and critically-acclaimed WASTELAND, exploring SECTION 28, which 'prohibited the promotion of homosexuality’. 

Gary Clarke said:  “What unites these three works is 1980’s Britain, and how different marginalised communities fought for their human rights, their livelihoods and their existence.  Born in 1980 in a working-class pit village, as a young gay man I spent all of my childhood, teenage years and early adult life living under Section 28. Today I am out and proud, yet I am left picking up the pieces, trying to make sense of what happened and what the lasting impact is on those of us who experienced it. Whilst I understand we have made good progress, DETENTION is my attempt at honouring the past and acknowledging an important benchmark in LGBT+ history that shaped our resilient and courageous community.” 

Gary Clarke's trademark of powerful and personal working-class storytelling draws once again on the public and private stories and testimonies of those communities affected, including for DETENTION a rare insight into the LGBT+ Switchboard Logbooks.   

On stage DETENTION brings together Clarke’s  vivid and theatrical physical dance language performed by a company of exceptional professional dancers, an evocative narrator /actor and five members of the LGBT+ community, selected locally for every venue aged 40+ and directly affected by Section 28; a total of 45 LGBT+ people cast across the 2025 national tour to nine venues. 

Clarke added: “Like COAL and WASTELAND communities are at the heart of DETENTION and it felt wrong to make a new show about communities without involving them."

DETENTION also brings together once more the production and creative team that made COAL and WASTELAND such major hits with both critics and audiences.   

 Producer and long-time collaborator Annabel Dunbar; Dramaturg Lou Cope; Set and Costume Designer Ryan Dawson Laight and Thatcher voice over artist Steven Nallon (Spitting Image).   

New collaborators include award-winning lighting designer Joshie Harriette, sound composer Torben Sylvest, film maker Kamal Macdonald, script and text deviser Adam Zmith and several recorded music tracks by the iconic band Test Dept including Movement I, Jerusalem and Myfanway.

Performing in DETENTION are dancers Gavin Coward (also Artistic Associate), Alexandra Bierlaire, Alex Gosmore, Mayowa Ogunnaike and Imogen Wright and actor Lewey Hellewell (Narrator) with El Perry (Thatcher on film) and Sarah Squires (Teacher on film).    

The 2025 tour visits Nottingham Playhouse (8 & 9 May), The Lowry in Salford (14 & 15 May) Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield (21 & 22 May), The Place in London (3 – 7 June), Northern Stage in Newcastle (16 & 17 Sep), Oxford Playhouse (26 & 27 Sep), Cast in Doncaster (30 Sep & 1 Oct), The Grand in Blackpool (8 & 9 Oct), and Corn Exchange in Brighton (14 & 15 Oct).   

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