Created to mark 35 years since it was voted into law by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, and 20 years since its repeal, award-winning Breach Theatre’s new documentary musical After The Act tours to Liverpool Playhouse (October 24-26) and HOME, Manchester (November 12-16).
The show takes audiences from the adolescent anguish of the classroom to the heated debates of Parliament, via celebrations and street demonstrations, with (almost) every word taken from interviews with students, activists and teachers as well as tabloid articles and news clips of the era.
The show's writers Ellice Stevens and Billy Barrett, said: “As part of the generation that grew up under Section 28, this is a story that's hugely personal to us, as well as political.
"The moral panic of the 1980's over LGBT-inclusive education had an enormous impact on our coming of age and sense of ourselves as young queer people in the Nineties and Noughties.
"It's been fascinating to speak to so many LGBT people of a slightly older generation, who remember the fight for and against Section 28, and to people of all ages about its impact on them."
Ellice's co-writing for Breach Theatre has been awarded two Scotsman Fringe Firsts and she was part of the ensemble that won The Stage's Edinburgh Award for Acting for It's True, It's True, It's True.
Also in the cast are composer and musical director Frew (Chariots of Fire, Steel, Sheffield Theatres), and Ericka Posadas (Your Lie In April, Harold Pinter Theatre); Nkara Stephenson (Heartstopper Season 3), and Zachary Willis, whose performance in After The Act at the Diorama Theatre has been nominated as part of the "best ensemble cast" category for the 2024 Offies awards.