The Research Process | Research Partners | Research Institutions | The Research | Interviews | Switchboard | Banners | Memorial Quilt
The Research Process
As a choreographer who creates work inspired by working class communities and social and political history, extensive research is paramount for each show to ensure accuracy and authenticity in the retelling of these important stories. My aim is for audiences to leave with a clearer understanding of the past, how it shaped us as a nation and how it continues to echo through our society today.
Over a six month period I immerse myself in a rigorous research process, drawing from a wide range of sources including archives, books, journals, media coverage, documentaries, films, podcasts, images, objects, and, most importantly, conversations and testimonies with those who lived through it. This research is always a deep dive – methodical, layered, and essential to the show’s development.
By the end of this process, I have an overwhelming amount of information which I carefully edit and distil into a digestible, cohesive catalogue, often divided by themes and ideas I am interested in exploring. Through this detailed and structured process, I am able to build a chronological timeline of events which becomes the structural and creative framework on which to build the show.
The curated materials, along with visual collages, mood boards and creative ‘scrapbooks’ are shared with the wider creative team to inform and inspire every aspect of the production including choreography, sound, light, costume, text, spoken word, film, visual design, structure and dramaturgy. The research provides us all with a shared vision from which to work from.
Curated Research Materials
Research Partners
I knew that researching the subject matters surrounding Detention would be a complicated and momentous undertaking, one that would require support, collaboration, and a variety of perspectives. My research process can often feel isolating, so I was intentional about creating a shared process with others to help navigate both the emotional weight and the historical and political nuance.
I invited various partners to join me on the research process who became vital in the mapping, documentation, facilitation, conversation and relationship-building needed to uncover and share these stories. They were instrumental in providing a soundboard and support network for me as I uncovered the complexities of such intricate subject matters. It was important that the partners identified as LGBT+, had a deep understanding of the time and the wider work of Gary Clarke Company.
Research Institutions
Throughout the research process, I frequented 4 main research institutions including:
Bishopsgate Institute
Bishopsgate Institute’s Special Collections and Archives in London holds one of the most extensive collections on LGBTQIA+ history, politics and culture in the UK. The collections encompass LGBTQIA+ history politics and culture, with archives from Stonewall, Switchboard, GMFA/The Gay Men’s Health Charity, Outrage! and material relating to the Terrence Higgins Trust, Achilles Heel and QX magazines.
www.bishopsgate.org.uk
The People's History Museum
The People’s History Museum in Manchester is the UK’s national centre for the collection, conservation, interpretation and study of material relating to the history of working people in the UK. The collection cont. With over 400 trade union and political banners, the museum holds the largest banner collection in the world.
phm.org.uk
Manchester Central Library
The LGBT Foundation Archive, located at Archives+ at Manchester Central Library, includes materials relating to our organisational history as well as the wider history of LGBTQ+ communities in Greater Manchester. The archive also includes an oral histories collection and copies of local, national and international LGBTQ+ publications including Attitude Magazine, Boyz, Diva, Gay Times, Gay News, The Pink Paper, Out (1997-2009), Poz (1994-1998) and a complete collection of Outnorthwest magazine.
www.manchester.gov.uk/centrallibrary
Queer Britain
Queer Britain the UK’s first museum of Queer culture and boasts a fascinating archive as well as the world’s first virtual reality museum dedicated to celebrating the stories and artwork of LGBTQIA+ people and preserving queer personal histories. Queer Britain has already established itself as a safe space for LGBTQIA+ people and a beacon within the cultural zeitgeist.
queerbritain.org.uk
The Research
Research materials and Gary Clarke at ‘Gays The Word’ Bookshop, London
The research for Detention was eye-opening. What I found was just how massive the shadow of Section 28 really was, how it did not just touch one part of LGBT+ life, but bled into everything.
I trawled through numerous boxes and files, crammed to the brim with pages of information, each page holding enough weight to cover a whole show. It was a daunting, exhaustive, yet essential task.
I started in 1988, the year Section 28 was introduced, but it forced me to dig deeper. Back to 1979 with Thatcher, then Stonewall, then the Holocaust – and somehow all the way back to Henry VIII and the Buggery Act of 1533. I had to go back to understand how we got here; I had to go back to move forward.
What I uncovered was brutal. The language used at the time of Section 28 against our communities by politicians, the media, so-called leaders, was dripping with hate.
Homophobia was loud, public, and deliberate. It shaped laws, headlines, classrooms and homes. I read stories that were hard to stomach – stories of people being silenced, outed, beaten, shamed. Stories that ended in suicide.
But that’s not all I found. There was also defiance. People fighting back. Organising. Protesting. Loving each other fiercely. I saw communities showing up when no one else would. I saw heroes – some known, some forgotten – doing whatever they could to protect and uplift each other. I found rage, heartbreak, and pain. But also, solidarity, humour, community, creativity, tenderness, and hope.
What struck me deeply, especially as someone from a coal mining community, was the unexpected alliances, especially between the LGBT+ community and LGSM (Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners). Two groups, both pushed to the margins, coming together with nothing but solidarity and a shared struggle. That connection felt intrinsic for me as an LGBT+ person from a mining village growing up under the ‘iron fist’ of Section 28. It reminded me that resistance doesn’t always look how you expect it to. Sometimes, it’s unlikely allies showing up for one another when it matters most.
My research wasn’t just research. It was a reckoning.
Interviews
Speaking with people directly made the research come alive. Conversations with a wide range of people allowed me to ask honest, targeted questions and hear powerful stories first-hand.
I had the rare opportunity to interview some of the major political voices of the time including LGBT+ and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, activist and founder of LGBT+ History Month Sue Sanders, members of LGSM (Lesbian and Gays Support The Miners) and Founder of North West Campaign and organiser of ‘Never Going Underground’ Hugh Fell.
I spoke with authors of various books I was reading including Paul Baker (OUTRAGEOUS), Paul Burston (We Can Be Heroes) and Kate Charlesworth (Sensible Footwear).
I spoke with people who had worked within central government and local councils during Section 28, revealed the tensions behind the scenes: internal resistance, personal conflict, and the weight of policy on real lives.
I joined facilitated group discussions with LGBT+ support groups and organisations, which opened space for a wider range of voices and experiences. These sessions were generous, moving, and a reminder that no single voice can carry a whole history.
I connected with other creatives and theatre makers exploring similar themes, sharing approaches, opinions, struggles and breakthroughs which became a quiet form of solidarity.
And I also spoke to various LGBT+ individuals from isolated working-class communities who were more closer to my own lived experience.
List of interviews (in chronological order)
Peter Tatchell
Peter Tatchell is an Australian-born British born human rights campaigner, best known for his work with LGBT+ and social movements.
Sue Sanders
Sue Sanders is an educator and LGBTQ+ and disability rights activist. She is founder of LGBT History Month and has served on the LGBT Advisory Group to the UK Government’s Hate Crime Board.
Hugh Fell
Founder of North West Campaign and organiser of ‘Never Going Underground’ – Manchester Protest 1988.
Paul Baker
Author of Outrageous! CAMP and Fabulousa!
Lesbian Gays Support the Miners
The London Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) group was formed in July 1984, four months into the year-long miners’ strike of 1984-5.
Paul Fairweather
From moving to Manchester in 1978 to work for the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, to becoming the first Gay Man’s Officer at Manchester City Council and then becoming an HIV campaigner, Paul has lived and made LGBT+ history over the past 50 years.
Matthew Todd
Matthew is a British writer, editor and occasional stand-up comedian. He is the author of Straight Jacket – Overcoming Society’s Legacy of Gay Shame, a non-fiction title published by Bantam Press in June 2016 and the play Blowing Whistles which has been performed in London, Australia and the United States. He was the editor of the UK gay magazine Attitude, between 2008 and 2016 for which he won three British Society of Magazine Editors awards.
Pippa Catterall
Pippa Poppy Catterall is a British academic historian who, since 2016, has been Professor of History and Policy at the University of Westminster. Her research has focused on twentieth-century history and politics, the mass media, conflict studies and nationalism.
Paul Burston
Paul is a Welsh journalist and author. He worked for the London gay policing group GALOP and was an activist with ACT UP before moving into journalism. He edited, for some years, the LGBT section of Time Out and founded the Polari Prize.
Kate Charlesworth
Cartoonist, illustrator and writer and and author of Sensible Footwear.
Adam Zmith
Author and Creator of ‘The Log Books’ – Archives from LGBT Switchboard.
LGBT+ Over 50’s Group / ZEST at Weston Park Museum
The LGBT+ Over 50s Group is a welcoming group in Sheffield. The group is supported by LGBT Sheffield, SAYIT, ZEST, SOAR and other 3rd sector organisations in Sheffield and has links to the LGBT Foundation in Manchester and Switchboard in Brighton.
LGBT+ Alliance at Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council (BMBC)
LGBT+ Network – BARNSLEY HOSPITAL NHS FOUNDATION TRUST
Harry Mackrill
Olivier Award Winning Theatre Director.
Billy Barrett
Director of Breach Theatre and the production ‘After the Act’.
Gerrard Swift
LGBT+ person from Grimethorpe / Willowgarth High School.
Sarah Squires
Ex-school teacher in the 1990’s whose real life events was the basis of the BAFTA nominee hit film ‘Blue Jean’.
Fiona Moorcroft
Fiona was born in Worksop into a coal mining family and have written extensively about the effects of the toxic legislation. Fiona works at SAYiT, a Sheffield based LGBTQ+ youth charity.
Phil Quinn
Phil is currently Head of Service – HR and OD at Barnsley Council.
Switchboard
I was searching for personal stories, real, lived experiences that could sit alongside the political themes of DETENTION. I wanted to show both the public and the private, the political and the personal.
Through a research partner, I was introduced to Adam Zmith and Tash Walker and their award-winning podcast The Log Books, based on handwritten notes by volunteers at Switchboard, the LGBT+ helpline.
Each episode is built around real entries from the logbooks, offering a powerful insight into queer life in Britain. Now held at the Bishopsgate Institute, these records capture the fears, hopes, and everyday struggles of LGBT+ people in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. It felt like it offered a context in which to bring private, often unheard voices to the stage.
I was fortunate to work with Adam, Tash, and Switchboard, who gave me access to the entries from the time of Section 28. The logbooks themselves held so much weight – they were battered and bruised, stained, torn and held together by sticky-tape. What I read on the pages were heartbreaking and deeply personal accounts – lonely phone calls to what was, for many, the only life line around. Amongst the calls was also scrawled notes between the volunteers, discussing the conditions in which they had to work – the dirt, the cold and the broken phone lines.
We commissioned Adam to search through the logs and gather stories that reflected a wide range of experiences touching on age, gender, religion, and class all from the time surrounding Section 28.
To honour their honesty and emotion, I felt it was important to stay true to the accuracy of the logs and that audiences heard them spoken verbatim – to show how complex life was for LGBT+ people during that time.
I hope that including Switchboard gives DETENTION a vital human angle and a new way to understand the era. It also highlights the lasting importance of support networks – Switchboard is still taking calls today.
To listen to the Log Books Podcast click here: www.thelogbooks.org
0800 0119 100 | www.switchboard.lgbt
Banners
One of the things that stood out in the research was the incredible artwork created as a form of protest. Banners and posters became powerful, visceral, visual statements, acting as a counterweight to the hostile headlines dominating the press. My interest in protest banners stems from my close connection to the coal mining industry, the 1984 British Miner’s Strike and my time spent with the National Union of Mineworker’s (NUM) which currently holds a vast collection of original coal mining banners.
Including banners in Detention was a way to honour both movements and draw a line between them – a chance to bring those histories together and celebrate the meaning behind these hand-crafted pieces of resistance.
I came across a group of queer artists called the Hold It Up Collective in Leeds who specialised in historical banner making. Their work was intricate, accurate and political. We partnered with them to create bespoke banners for the show.
They aren’t just props; they’re hanging works of art that I hope the audience can experience and enjoy.
Hold It Up Collective creating the banners for DETENTION, Leeds
Memorial Quilt
One of the most hard-hitting parts of the research was the AIDS pandemic. It felt impossible to ignore – it was a defining moment in LGBT+ history and a major catalyst for the introduction of Section 28. I knew I had to explore it within the work, but I wanted to approach it with care. It was important not to be sensational or graphic, but instead to honour the memory of those affected in a symbolic and respectful way.
I began searching for metaphorical forms of expression and was deeply moved when I came across the AIDS Memorial Quilt – a powerful tribute to the lives lost to AIDS and AIDS-related causes. Weighing an estimated 54 tonnes, the quilt is the largest piece of community folk art in the world, with each handmade panel telling a personal story of love, loss, and remembrance.
Inspired by this, I partnered with Andi Walker, a talented textiles artist based in Leeds who specialises in quilt making where he designed and made a quilt for the show.
“Quilts have become increasingly central to my work due to their remarkable ability to hold and convey stories. They are more than just objects; they are vessels of memory, tradition, and emotion.
Beyond personal narratives, quilts have played an important role in social and political movements. The AIDS Memorial Quilt, for instance, became a powerful tribute to lives lost, transforming grief into a collective statement of remembrance and advocacy. Quilts have also been used as tools of resistance and activism, from the underground railroad’s coded quilt patterns to contemporary works addressing issues of justice and identity.
There is also an inherent comfort in quilts—both physically and emotionally. They provide warmth and protection, evoking a sense of home and security.
In my practice, I explore the quilt’s potential not just as a functional textile but as a canvas for storytelling, experimentation, and emotional expression. By pushing the boundaries of traditional quilting techniques, I take inspiration from its rich heritage while also reinterpreting it for contemporary contexts.”
The Quilt in DETENTION designed by Andi Walker, Leeds