A photo rediscovery; Sleep Has Its House, 2nd year devised project, Dept. of Theatre Studies, University of Lancaster. Directed by Pete Brooks, Nuffield Theatre Studio, Lancaster, May 1986.

From L to R: Holly, Kelsey Michael, Louize Gibson, Alison Wayman, Nicky Johnstone, Dave Cattermole, Graeme Rose (standing, centre), Katherine Anderson, Johnny Brown, Jools Gilson, Sara Giddens, Rosaleen Lee, Claire McLeod and Amanda Rose (unseen); Sound design by Graeme Miller and Rhys Davies; lx design by Pete Brooks and Tam Drury.

As the newly appointed Fellow-in-Theatre, Pete Brooks introduced a new theatre language and a new world of possibility to the Theatre Studies Department at Lancaster. Sleep Has Its House was his first staged project in the Department. Performed barely a week after his company, Impact Theatre Co-operative presented their last ever performance of  The Carrier Frequency, (in Warsaw – on the night of the Chernobyl disaster). The following year, Pete formed a new company, Insomniac Prods. and restaged a developed version of this show – inspired by Oliver Sachs’s ‘Awakenings‘ – entitled The Sleep, and which toured the UK in 1987 featuring Sarah Jane Morris.

Inspired and motivated by this new way of working, several of the faces in the above picture decided to form a company of our own – Kath, Sara, Claire and myself. The company was named Glory What Glory, and Pete continued to mentor us, co-directing the company’s first piece, Falling Into The Light, which toured in the late spring and autumn of 1988; Jocelyn Pook composing a powerful, driving soundtrack.