TiE It Up receives ACE Funding

11 January 2021

TiE It UpTheatre is delighted to announce that we have secured Arts Council England grant funding for our upcoming live film recording of Hard to Swallow by Mark Wheeller. The award will ensure that the live recording will go ahead in the Spring with the stream available for schools to download in April.

"We have produced three tours of Hard to Swallow and we were planning to tour again this Spring Term, but due to the ongoing Covid-19 situation, we decided to film our acclaimed production and make it available online," explains TiU producer David Chafer.

"This ACE grant ensures we will now have the funding to be able to film Hard to Swallow in top quality surroundings using the latest high definition cameras and editing. We have learnt so much from our experience of producing a live film recording of Mark Wheeller's I Love You, Mum - I Promise I Won't Die that we are really looking forward to getting stuck into Hard to Swallow."

To assist with the overall costs of production, TiE It Up has also received a generous donation from the estate of the late Maureen Dunbar, whose original book 'Catherine: the story of a young girl who died of anorexia nervosa' inspired Mark Wheeler to dramatise the story. Subsequently, Hard to Swallow has been a GCSE Drama set text and since 2018 TiE It Up Theatre's production has been warmly received in over 50 secondary schools and watched by thousands of students.

Artistic Director Elliot Montgomery, adds: "We are so pleased and thankful that a lot of schools have already pre-ordered Hard to Swallow - this was really important to demonstrate to the Arts Council that there was sufficient demand to make the project viable. The funding is a real boost for our young company. We know how difficult the theatre landscape is at the moment, with many in our industry out of work with little or no prospect of a return soon. We have been incredibly lucky in the past 12 months to have completed a tour just before the first lockdown, rehearsed and filmed I Love You, Mum... in the summer and now planning to make a filmed version of Hard to Swallow. We have received terrific support from Mark Wheeller and everyone who has been involved in our work to-date."

TiE It Up Theatre plans to record Hard to Swallow in late March and the stream link will be available to purchasing schools from w/c 19 April 2021 and can be used until the end of the next academic year (July 2022).

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