By Judith Johnson

Funded by a Society Award from the Wellcome Trust, and a contribution from the Association of Medical Research Charities

“Every Breath” is in Y Touring's long tradition of thought-provoking drama.Young people need to hear the arguments presented in a balanced form, relevant to their own lives. “Every Breath” achieves this brilliantly."

Colin Blakemore, Chief Executive, Medical Research Council

“Every Breath turns this difficult subject into an enjoyable and stimulating piece of drama. The characters feel like real people, not cardboard cut-outs and the full range of ethical and scientific complexity is explored in the piece with a real lightness of touch. Whatever their views, audiences should leave this production with a deeper understanding of the issue than when they went in – and that has to be a good thing.”

Alistair Currie BUAV

Sonny, 18, is a vegetarian who has always been concerned about the environment and animal rights. He’s just got a Saturday job on the Pussy Cat Van, a cat rescue operation, and believes strongly that it is wrong to experiment on animals.

His sister Anita, 21, the academic one of the family, is a carnivorous scientist completely convinced that using animals in  medical research is justified.

Their mum Lina’s chances of having a love life initially depend on getting them to be civil to each other at, of all places, the dinner table.

The guest of honour will be her prospective new boyfriend Raz, a painter and decorator whose newfound Buddhist spirituality gives him an interesting take on the whole debate.

As the gripping family drama unfolds, Sonny’s future plans, and his principles, are put to the test, when his health takes a turn for the worse… 

Every Breath is a new play by award winning playwright Judith Johnson that explores the serious social, moral, scientific and political questions raised by the use of animals in medical research.

The performance will be followed by a live debate during which the students will be encouraged to explore what they think and feel about the issues posed by the drama.

Part of the Theatre of debate programme, it has been specifically designed to be a valuable cross-curricular learning tool with particular relevance to the Science (particularly the new 'Twenty First CenturyScience' curriculum developed by the Nuffield institute in partnershipwith OCR), Drama, English, PSHE/Citizenship and RE curricula.

Every Breath is targeted at students at KS4 and above (Aged14+)

	For further information about this project, email our Tour Producer David Jackson