This summer Cancer Research UK Cardiff approached Rising Ape Collective and asked if we’d like to develop an immersive event based around clinical trials and patient involvement. After successful initial discussions, planning and research, we are very pleased to now start shouting about it!
In January, Rising Ape and the Bristol Improv Theatre will host an evening that gets you, our audience, right in the shoes of the people making clinical trials and cancer research happen. Like all our events it will be audience-centred and engaging as hell. But this particular subject means we get the chance to try something even more human, moving and relatable.
It can be easy to take for granted the impact cancer research has had on our world, especially if you’re lucky enough to lack personal experience of this impact. In the seventies, 1 in 4 people diagnosed with cancer died. Over the last 40 years, thanks to the work done by the people of organisations like Cancer Research UK, survival rates have doubled. This astonishing progress would not be possible without the thousands of real people, patients included, from all backgrounds who come together to make it happen through projects like clinical trials. These people continue to work together every day and it’s their contributions we want you to experience.
For all it’s success, cancer research is an area that can seem every bit as complex, confusing and, let’s face it, as scary, to most of us as the diseases it’s working to understand and combat. How are new drugs discovered? Who decides what treatments patients get? How do we know what works? It may not sound like the obvious choice for the next Rising Ape Presents…
But we’re excited.
We’re excited because we get to highlight the human stories behind clinical trials: the place where scientists, nurses, doctors, and (most of all) patients work together to beat cancer sooner.
We’re excited to bring together a whole medley of people, patients, performers, researchers, game makers and others, to forge new conversations and understandings in an effort to create something unique.
We’re excited to collaborate with both the Bristol Improv Theatre and Cancer Research UK to make this possible. The first is an old friend we are loving working more closely with, and the second is a renowned organisation of committed and passionate people that have given us the opportunity to push ourselves in new ways.
And we’re beyond excited for you to be a part of it, whether in Bristol or, who knows, even beyond?
So look out for production updates/creative tantrums/over-excitement here on the site and @RisingApeTweets, @CRUKCardiff and www.improvtheatre.net and keep the end of January as free as Willy when he soars over that Canadian sea wall, thrashing his big tail. Rising Ape, BIT and Cancer Research UK will be waiting for you.
Rising Ape Collective 