Award-winning super happy story about feeling super sad

As part of its first ever UK tour, Silent Uproar presents A Super Happy Story (About Feeling Super Sad) at Tron Theatre from October 25-27.

Written by Olivier award-winner Jon Brittain (Rotterdam, Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho) with music by Matthew Floyd Jones (Frisky and Mannish), prepare to laugh, cry and even get a song or two stuck in your head.

Influenced by the company’s personal experiences and informed by interviews with people living with mental health problems and medical professionals, it’s a joyful, buoyant, gleeful, slightly silly, sugar coated, unrelenting and completely super happy show! Except for all the bits about depression.

Silent Uproar is hoping to have mental healthcare professionals at each performance.

The idea is that if anybody is affected by the issues in the show, they will be able to talk to somebody afterwards.

Alex Mitchell, artistic director of Silent Uproar, said: “We wanted to make a show that was entertaining, accessible and discussed depression without being a depressing show.

“From suffering with anxiety and bouts of depression, and seeing friends and loved ones suffer, I wanted something that said ‘do you know what it doesn’t matter if you feel down today, it’s okay not to be okay. And most of all it’s okay to talk about it because the talking helps’.”

Silent Uproar is pioneering Pay What You Decide across this tour.

Although commonly used by some venues, this is thought to be the first time a theatre company has used it across a tour.

It is hoped the ‘try before you buy’ model adopted by the likes of Netflix, will attract new and more diverse audiences and more venues across the country will use it as a tool to develop audiences who might not currently think theatre is for them.

The comedic and production style of the show draws from sources as diverse as Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Pixar’s Inside Out, Juno, and musicals like Cabaret and Chicago.

The show won the Fringe First Award and Best Musical Award at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe.

To coincide with the show’s run at Tron Theatre, Tron Creative will be hosting several workshops addressing mental in the performing arts.

These workshops are open to both members of Tron Theatre’s MAKER professional membership scheme, as well as non-members.

Participants are invited to explore Self-Care in Conscious Theatre Practice with yoga instructor Lou Prendergast, as well as workshops focusing on Psychological Wellbeing in the Performing Arts with Dr Jane Oakland, an accredited BAPAM practitioner (British Association of Performing Arts Medicine) and professional opera singer.