Housemates
- Richard Evans
- Sep 11, 2025
- 2 min read
Tim Green
Sherman Theatre/Hijinx
Theatr Clwyd, Mold
September 10-13, 2025; 2 hrs, no interval
Sometimes you go to the theatre with little expectations of what a show will be like and then uncover a gem like this. Calling Housemates a rock ’n’ roll retelling - there is plenty of great Seventies music - of a remarkable Welsh story doesn't capture the significance of the actual events behind the play.
Jim Mansell is a student looking for a cause and has already, in a week, campaigned against Apartheid and the Vietnam war. He volunteers to take a person with Downs Syndrome, Alan Duncan, to the park one afternoon, thus starting an enduring friendship. Soon Alan is suggesting he could come and live in Jim’s student flat and Jim, who is appalled at the mundane routine in Alan's hospital home, eventually agrees. He and his flatmate, Sally, wage a two-year campaign for five people from Alan’s ward to come and share a student house, against the supposedly better judgment of the doctor in charge.
The experiment is a resounding success, confounding the expectations of the medical hierarchy and producing a model of care in the community that would eventually be standard nationally.
The show is a collaboration between Cardiff's Sherman and Hijinx theatre companies - the latter using people with learning difficulties as a matter of course, and it has a lovely, fluid atmosphere. It starts with an informal, unscripted warm-up session with the band and moves seamlessly into the action of the play. The music takes you back to the 1970s and involves the audience immediately, with numbers like Cum On Feel the Noize and Proud Mary. Music is used very cleverly, the lyrics matching the events of the play, with the tempo of a song often changed to suit the mood.
The cast works really well and is obviously very comfortable as a team (this is the same central cast as for the first tour a couple of years ago). The stand-out performances come from Gareth John as Alan, who is given some great one-liners; Peter Mooney as Jim, and Emily Ivana Hopkins as Sally - whose rendition of Proud Mary had many rocking in their seats.
The shocking aspect of this play is that it portrays actual events. Around 100,000 people regarded as sub human were once locked away in often distressing conditions and kept placid with the use of drugs, mind-numbing routine and occasionally violence. It took an 18-year-old student to campaign tirelessly to bring about change; once that happened there began the transformation of the way our society cares for people with learning difficulties and mental health problems. The events were truly revolutionary. It's no exaggeration to say that without the experiment of Alan Duncan and his friends, living in the community, this play would never have happened - which in itself is a reason to see the show.
Another reason is that it happens also to be a thoroughly enjoyable presentation, that fully deserves a standing ovation and gets one.
More info and tickets here
