This Spring, the nationally recognised and multi-disciplinary performance company Northern Rascals are taking their raw and powerful show Sunny Side on a UK tour. Touring in partnership with Andy’s Man Club, the show aims to raise awareness of the very real mental health epidemic in the UK. We sat down for an exclusive chat with them.
How did the real-life experiences of over 1,400 young people shape the narrative and emotional depth of Sunny Side?
Sunny Side is an ode to our young people. Young people up and down the country but particularly those in our closer locality of Yorkshire. Without them, Sunny Side and its story would still exist, but it wouldn’t be on national stages, platformed to people that need to hear it the most.
We’ve worked with over 1400 young people over a development process that has lasted 5 years and 5 different funding phases. During that time, we’ve gone through unprecedented change and shift in our cultural, social and political landscapes (hello pandemic!). We’ve been taken in a whirlwind of directions as a company but creatively, one thing that remained a welcome constant is our connection to our community of young people who have fed their stories into our shows. This is something that no matter the restriction, we were unwilling to lose.
With every funding phase for Sunny Side came a new way to engage, with the way in which we reached them altered in direct response to their feedback from the phase before. Over 1400 young people have fed into this final version of the show, they have come to dance classes and workshops, open sharings and rehearsals, 3-5 day intensives in our studio, in their schools and even online throughout the pandemic. Together, they unpicked and put together the world of Sunny Side to make it an accurate portrayal of today’s young people. Their ideas are woven into the characters, the soundscape, the set design, the movement style. It is as much theirs as it is ours.
Now we’re in the touring phase, we fear that we’d lose that connection as time progresses, we grow older, and the world moves on. Yet after every show, we get that hand on heart, eye to eye, human to human moment with an audience member who tells us that ‘the show was made just for them’.
What challenges did you face when balancing the raw honesty of mental health struggles with artistic expression through dance, theatre, and spoken word?
With a show like Sunny Side, there is a huge duty of care on us as directors. We have not just the team to hold but the whole audience too. How do we create and present a show that is hard-hitting without being harmful? Striking this balance between truth and triggering has been a challenge.
When we first began the development of the piece, the company was barely 2 years old. We were a team of baby-faced new graduates that had determination, talent and grit but no awareness of how to access these personal experiences of mental health without reliving them. Now 7 years on, we have systems in place that allow us, our team and our audience to enter these spaces with their hand held. We’ve been fortunate enough to bring in a company psychologist Natalie Alleston, who works closely with us and on a 1-2-1 basis with the team to offer support in managing their wellbeing throughout the tour. This provision has been invaluable. In an industry such as dance, where care is not often at the forefront, and finance is a barrier, it’s rare to have this support free and available. Three out of the seven dancers who received this support in a trial period for our last project, have now continued therapy with Natalie and the company she works for. To know that we played a part in creating this pathway, is something that we are most proud of.
There’s no denying that Sunny Side is a hard-hitting show. At times, we’ve shied away from this, but we believe that sometimes socially-impactful art has to be. On tour, we’ve questioned how we support the audience when we can’t be physically with every person. We’re super proud to have partnered with Andy’s Man Club, a nationwide suicide-prevention charity to address this; the charity will attend each performance, offering signposting and support if needed.
How has partnering with Andy’s Man Club influenced the development of the show and its mission to raise awareness about men’s mental health?
Andy’s Man Club originates from the same place as Sunny Side and Northern Rascals. We have first-hand experience of the same stories, the same environment, the same men. Our missions go hand in hand.
We come from a place of Yorkshire grit, of stiff-upper lip culture. Of men that silence their struggles and slip through the cracks. I know these men, they are my dad, my uncles, my school mates, the men who stand beside me at pubs and football games and the gym. To see these same men be such advocates for Andy’s Man Club, to have the awareness and the passion to make a change completely shifted my perception of what is possible in the mentality of this small northern town. It validated for us that Sunny Side and its subject matter is something that this community and demographic deeply care about. AMC can advocate on the ground, on Facebook and in communities, but our collaboration with them brings the stories into spaces that they don’t typically inhabit. We feel together we have a real potential for impact.
What conversations or responses do you hope Sunny Side will ignite among audiences, particularly young men navigating similar struggles?
Masculinity, as it is traditionally constructed, keeps men at arm’s length from themselves and from each other. Sunny Side begs our audience to push against that. To hold our men. To have the difficult conversations. We hope this show creates a space—however brief—where the silence around men’s mental health can crack open. Where vulnerability isn’t punished but honoured. Where softness is strength.
Already, we’ve seen the ripple effects—audiences holding each other when the lights come up, people sitting in quiet reflection, checking in. If even one person leaves the theatre and starts a conversation they were afraid to have before, then the work is doing what it’s meant to do.
Why do you think the mental health crisis feels even more pronounced in small, progressive towns like those depicted in Sunny Side?
The town Sunny Side is based on is geographically unusual—a narrow valley split by light and shadow. There’s the freedom of the moors parred with the shaded valley floor. It’s a tale of two sides. That physical divide becomes a metaphor for the social one: spaces where people can fall through the cracks.
In these small, seemingly progressive towns, there’s often a stark class divide sitting shoulder to shoulder. Our town is ‘The Happy Valley’; its popularity brings gentrification (as it should) but sometimes, it’s hard to ignore the effects of the tokenistic love of the North. There is nowhere to rent, nowhere to buy, nowhere to even park. Local working-class people are left othered in their own home. The working men’s club next to the craft beer taproom. The vegan deli next door to the betting shop. Rarely do those worlds cross over, yet we all occupy the same small space. At school, you’re briefly on a level playing field—but after that, many are left in a place of limited opportunities, watching others move on while they remain stuck.
You read it in the local Facebook groups, there’s a deep-rooted frustration—about lack of investment, or worse, investment that doesn’t feel like it’s for you. That’s compounded by a lingering stiff upper lip culture, a reluctance to speak, to soften, to be vulnerable. Add to that a landscape that can feel claustrophobic, and skies that rarely show the sun—one of the rainiest places in England. It all builds a pressure that’s hard to articulate. You want to leave, but don’t have the means, the route out, or the support at home to make it possible.
In towns like these, the mental health crisis isn’t always loud. It’s quiet, persistent. A low hum. A creeping grey.
After four years of development, what has surprised or impacted you most about the stories and voices that shaped Sunny Side?
Sunny Side is littered with critical moments that unsurprisingly hit you in the chest. The development of the show has followed this trajectory too. I have been consistently taken aback by how and what people share when they are given the space. Sunny Side seems to be a vehicle for truth telling. I will never forget the drop-in sessions that we held at the local club. Men came off the street and opened up in the most honest and heart-breaking ways. I felt so deeply honoured to be in that moment, to hear of the highs, the lows, the hopes and the fears of their circumstances and future. It really reiterated that Sunny Side is a tale that everyone knows. It’s a jolt to do better; if you know a man, love a man, are a man, it’s a must.
Tour Dates
30th April Edge Hill University, Rose Theatre, St Helens Road, Ormskirk, Lancashire L39 4QP
17th May Lakeside Theatre, Lakeside Arts, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD
24th May Arena Theatre Wolverhampton, Wulfruna Street, Wolverhampton WV1 1SE
6th June Pavilion Dance South West, Westover Road, Bournemouth BH1 2BU
12th – 13th June Leeds Playhouse, Playhouse Square Quarry Hill, Leeds LS2 7UP
18th June Dance City, Temple Street, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 4BR