PHOENIX | The Big House Theatre

You can't control Latitia. You can't help her. You can't catch her, so quick are her feet. But she's sinking fast. Sixteen and straight out of care, she's heading to rock bottom unless something, or someone, can break her fall. When the worst thing that could possibly happen happens, she takes her first step towards something good.

Written by Andy Day, TV and film screenwriter, with credits including Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, PHOENIX draws its punchy inspiration from the lives and words of the cast.

Jasmine Jobson plays the lead role of Latitia. Constantly in trouble with the police and in and out of care homes since the age of 14, Jasmine was once dubbed "Westminster's most difficult child" by Westminster social services. She has now turned her life around and, through the support of a new foster carer and The Big House, stars in her first full length production.

The Big House has a simple mission: to enable young people who have been through the care system to fulfill their potential.

Through drama, mentoring, and long-term support The Big House enables care leavers to move forward with their lives and live independently.

Maggie Norris established The Big House in 2013 after spending six years working to rehabilitate offenders and ex-offenders and having staged productions in Pentonville and Wormwood Scrubs. Working with a high number of care leavers, she was shocked to discover that almost half of all prisoners under 21 have been in care.

The Big House was set up to break this cycle and many others that care leavers find themselves trapped in. Through drama and other interventions they help care leavers overcome traumas experienced in childhood so they can make the complex transition from looked-after child to independent adult.

Maggie Norris’ work with young people at risk is innovative and exciting. -Kathy Burke

PHOENIX is an immersive promenade performance around the extraordinary space at Hackney Downs Studios draws out the raw and bitter truth, and the hard road to a hopeful future.