Cell Mates
The Padded Cell Theatre Company

By Adam Ford

Gavin Churnin and Scott Morgan are two young Liverpool-based writers with an unusual approach to theatre. The stage is a padded cell. The characters are patients. The audience are psychiatrists.

In their shadowy world, even the most seemingly innocent of events can set in motion a catastrophic chain of events. Fortunately, nothing too bad has come out of our Friday lunchtime pint at The Pilgrim. So far.

The pair formed Padded Cell after completing their studies at John Moores University in 2001, having become frustrated with what they saw as a lack of innovative theatre in Liverpool. After being restricted at university, they immediately found that having their own company gave them the freedom to explore themes often ignored by the theatre. For Gavin and Scott, the stage is an ideal place to explore questions of motivation. Why do ordinary people do extraordinary things? Is what I see, hear, say and feel the same as the person next to me? Whereas other groups often focus on style and narrative, Padded Cell seek to produce work that is character driven. This "allows individuals to compare their own lives - and the decisions they make everyday - with the characters they have been watching". Often this creates feelings of empathy, and people realise "how similar they may be, no matter how different their social environment".

As well as theatre performances, the duo run an education programme, taking their peculiar brand of character analysis into classrooms. This gives the students a chance to be creative in Drama lessons - as opposed to enduring 'Theatre In Education' tales which have specific references to other areas of the school curriculum.

Padded Cell's first play - 'Remedies' - was well received at the Unity Theatre in 2003. Gavin and Scott believe that its subject matter - addiction - was one that everybody could relate to at some level. "Some of us may be addicts, some obsessive, some fanatics…but as human beings we can all connect with a notion of curiosity, which is after all how it begins."

The company's next production was a version of Daniel Therriault's 'Battery' at the Myrtle Street Art Centre. Taking cues from Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein', the play dealt with issues of love and how the onward march of technology is constantly pushing back the boundaries of our lives. Heavy stuff. For Padded Cell, it's important that the 'psychiatrists' go home with a lot to think about and discuss. This was a trend that the group continued with 'The Play', which was staged at the Unity on June 16th and 17th.

As Gavin explained: "Anybody that has ever tried to write a play can tell you that it ain't as easy as it looks. The concept that a playwright without an idea can write a play about his own life was one that occurred to me because of my struggle to come up with a conclusive idea. The character of Danny is not me, but his determination to write a play, to be creative, and to never give up, certainly was driven from my own experiences of frustration. If I was to write a play about my own life I hope it would not turn out like Danny's!"

Understandably so, because Danny ends up falling for his best mate's lover, losing his friend and committing murder in a noirish nightmare. That's one terrible case of writer's block.