"I TOLD MY MUM I WAS GOING ON AN R.E. TRIP..."
(Film Version, 2018, 43 mins)

Writer: Julia Samuels

Director: Lindy Heymann

Producers: Roxanne Moores, Julia Samuels, Justine Potter

Performed by Jamie-Lee O'Donnell, Aizah Khan, Dorcas Seb and Emma Burns

Produced by 20 Stories High and Contact for BBC2

"I told my Mum I was going on an R.E. Trip…" is a frank, funny and moving film about four young women’s abortion experiences, told verbatim from real interviews, with spoken word and soulful beats.

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Originally conceived and toured around the UK as a theatre piece, "I told my Mum I was going on an R.E. Trip…" was then commissioned as part of BBC’s Performance Live strand, focused on creating new hybrid theatre/film work. Broadcasting on BBC2 in January 2018, the work subsequently toured to several film festivals in the UK and abroad, including the largest and most prestigious North American documentary festival Hot Docs, in Toronto.

 

The show deals with challenging themes, but filmed on the 50th anniversary of the legalisation of abortion in Britain, it explores the way in which society treats this subject and how this impacts on women today. And importantly asks what would happen if we started to talk openly about it?

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The film uses the theatre technique of recorded delivery, where the actors listen to the real recorded interviews through earphones and repeat the words as they hear them, bringing the audience as close to the truth behind the words as possible. Featuring interviewees from Great Britain and Northern Ireland and beyond, we meet health professionals, women, men and young people with a wide variety of experiences and opinions.​