I Love You, Mum - I Promise I Won't Die (Plays for Young People)

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We deliver training to teachers prior to the PSHE programme being delivered, and drug and alcohol awareness training to teachers, school staff and other professionals working with young people. In January 2014 16-year-old Daniel Spargo-Mabbs went to an illicit all-night rave, overdosed on ecstasy and died. Daniel was intelligent, funny, given to moments of wild clowning, but essentially serious, a member of Amnesty International and devoted to other charitable work. A hugely popular figure, he was not the sort of boy you expect this to happen to. Don’t miss Mark Wheeller’s beautifully-written play and Octopus Dream’s acclaimed production, touring to theatres across the country for the first time. Drama is an incredibly powerful way to communicate important messages to young people, and Mark Wheeller’s play has become a core part of our vision to enable young people to understand the risks, and potential consequences and impact of experimenting with drugs. The final play, however, is as much about love, friendship, forgiveness and loss, as it is about drugs. We provide planning and resources for evidence-based drug and alcohol education to be delivered by teachers in schools as part of Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education. Three programmes offer a spiral curriculum from years 7-18, years 9-11 and sixth forms, which is age-appropriate and builds on prior learning, and is adapted to be delivered in lessons or shorter form-time sessions.

For ‘I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die’, Mark used verbatim theatre to take the actual words of Dan’s family and friends, recorded in a series of interviews, which were painstakingly transcribed and then turned into the script of this two-act play. He took eighteen months developing the script and performance with Oasis Youth Theatre, based in Southampton. Through his incredible skill, and the huge talent and commitment of the young people and team of Oasis Youth Theatre, these raw words were transformed into a stunning performance that brought the audience to tears at each of its performances. I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die is a verbatim play told through the words of Daniel’s family and friends. The play allows Dan’s story to be told by the people who loved him and knew him the best, his family and friends. I Love You Mum, I Promise I Won't Die is a true story about Daniel Spargo-Mabbs, a popular schoolboy who tragically died at 16 after taking ecstasy at an illegal rave in 2014. This is such an exciting development for us as a drug education charity, and also as Dan’s mum and dad. We commissioned Mark Wheeller to turn Dan’s story into a play as part of our passionate commitment when Dan died to prevent any harm happening to anyone else’s family from drugs. This first tour to theatres is taking the play to a whole new audience outside schools, where it’s been touring for the last few years. We really hope this will mean families will come together and have conversations at home that help other teenagers keep themselves safe - but it’s also a beautiful play and a fantastic production, creating an opportunity for anyone who loves great theatre to experience it, and to get to know our Dan.” The tour is being supported by drug education charity The Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation. Commenting on the play and support for the tour, the Director & Founder – and Dan’s mum - Fiona Spargo-Mabbs OBE, said:The National Youth Theatre’s Rep Company is celebrating its first ten years and Susan Elkin paid a visit to learn more. Each year a group of fifteen or so talented NYT members, aged 18 to 25, are selected by audition to join this company. In just a few months they rehearse three shows, many of […] Apprenticeships

is a Yorkshire-based touring theatre company which was borne out of the work of our founder company TiE It Up Theatre, which specialises in taking professionally-made drama into secondary schools.I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die by prolific playwright Mark Wheeller is the story of Dan, a popular South London schoolboy, who took ecstasy at an illegal rave and tragically died as a result of taking a lethal dose. This fast-paced, powerful and emotionally-charged play, tells the true story of what happened to Dan, the choices he made and the impact on his family and friends – all told in their own words, from tragedy to redemption. Dan was the younger son of Fiona and Tim Spargo-Mabbs, living with them and his older brother Jacob in Croydon, South London. He was in Year 12 of Archbishop Tenison CE High School in Croydon, which he’d attended since Year 7. Dan was bright, articulate, funny, chatty, popular and talented; a big, engaging, much loved character as illustrated by him being voted Prom King at the end of year 11 by an overwhelming majority. He was embedded in his school community – playing in the band for the school show just before Christmas in year 12 – as well as his local and church communities, running errands for the elderly people to whom he delivered on his daily paper round, and involved in youth work at the church he attended with his family. He had a real social conscience, having recently signed up to the bone marrow donor register and becoming a member of Amnesty International. We were so excited to hear just before Christmas that Mark Wheeller’s play that tells Dan’s story will become a GCSE drama set text next year. ’I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die’ will be in great company on the Eduqas syllabus. Dan is cool, clever and smart. A talented, creative “lovely boy” with a passion for helping others who’s always on the side of the underdog. Everyone loves Dan and at 16, he has plans, plenty of them – just losing his life isn’t one of them.

Dan is cool, clever and smart. A talented, creative “lovely boy” with a passion for helping others who’s always on the side of the underdog. Everyone loves Dan and at 16, he has plans, plenty of them - just losing his life isn't one of them. The filmed version of ‘I Love You, Mum..’ aired on the Edinburgh Fringe Player in 2021 and received critical acclaim: A verbatim play written by Mark Wheeller using the testimonies of Daniel Spargo-Mabbs’ friends and family. Premiere performance at The BRIT School, Tuesday 29th March 2016Neither play text nor production overplays the drama. It’s all there in the controlled, understated performances and the poignancy of the filmed interviews. Mark has been writing successful plays since the 1980s, and writes powerfully for young people, using Theatre in Education to communicate about issues that affect them. His plays are extensively used in the drama curriculum in schools, he has been one of the playwrights recommended in the Edexcel GCSE drama syllabus for many years. Two of his plays, ‘Hard to Swallow’ and ‘Missing Dan Nolan’, have been set texts on two out of four of the GCSE drama (9-1) specifications from 2016- 2023. His play ‘Too Much Punch for Judy’, written in 1987, is one of the most performed contemporary plays in the UK. Don’t miss Mark Wheeller’s beautifully-written play and Octopus Dream’s acclaimed production, touring to theatres for the first time, following highly successful tours to secondary schools across the country. I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die is approved set text for the EDUQAS GCSE Drama (component 3)

It was seven years ago this January that Dan came and found me before he headed off to a party, so he could give me a hug, tell me he loved me, and make the usual joke, promising he wouldn’t die. The next day we were in the liver intensive care unit at Kings, watching him do just that. Now these last words of Dan’s are the title of a play, that teenagers across the UK and around the world will be sitting in exam halls answering questions about. I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die was commissioned by the DSM Foundation to raise awareness about the danger of party drugs. It is a fast-paced, tragic, vibrant piece of verbatim theatre, which should engage teenage readers, audiences and performers alike. Workshops focus on informed decision making and risk awareness. They aim to leave no student in doubt that they always have a choice about the decisions they make and that the risks associated with illegal substance use can be incredibly high. They learn some facts that will help them make informed decisions and some tools to put their decisions into practice in a pressured situation.

About the contributors

In May 1997 Daniel Spargo-Mabbs was born. His parents, like every parent wondered what he will achieve, what job will he do? In January 2014 I was pregnant and my whole world was going to change; just 30 miles away Fiona and Tim Spargo-Mabbs’ world was about to change dramatically too their son, Daniel, died on January 20th 2014. You shouldn’t have your children go before you. How do you cope with something so tragic? Fiona and Tim have done more than cope they have set up a foundation in Daniel’s name ‘The Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation’ ( www.dsmfoundation.org.uk) and over the last 18 months they have worked with playwright Mark Wheeller to have Daniel’s story turned into a verbatim play as a performance to educate young people – they want the production to tour schools so that ‘many good things can come from this very bad thing.’ This play has a message much bigger than the assumption ‘drugs are bad’ it shows the power of friendship, trust, family and love and how one person’s actions can have dire consequences on all of those. We’re delighted that you are studying the play that tells Dan’s story. Thank you for buying directly from DSMF – due to our publisher’s discount this will generate a small donation to our drug education work Two months after he died, the DSM Foundation commissioned playwright Mark Wheeller to write a verbatim play about what happened to Dan. Published in 2017, the play has been studied, taught and performed worldwide with the play having a successful run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2018. This new high-quality digital production has been filmed by Yorkshire-based Tie It Up Theatre to translate the live performance to screen. That fateful evening is told through the words of his school friends and family, divided into two hard-hitting acts in Mark Wheeller’s verbatim play.