Learn more about the ‘How’s Your Father?’ theatre show itself; what’s involved, what you can expect. Read about the Q&A session and the in-person training workshop linked to the show.
Learn more about the ‘How’s Your Father?’ theatre show itself; what’s involved, what you can expect. Read about the Q&A session and the in-person training workshop linked to the show.
Find out more about the two academic research studies that the HYF theatre show, and the training activities are based on.
The theatre show
‘How’s Your Father?’ is a 70-minute live theatre show that tells the stories of four men and their experiences and encounters with authority. Each story poses different questions on what it means to be a father, what challenges fathers can face and present, and why fatherhood matters for all of us. The show is built from academic research about fathers’ experiences of family welfare and child protection services, and the family court system, and all four characters and their biographies are based on real-life.
What does it involve?
The show draws you into each father’s story, their journey into fatherhood, and the challenges this brings. It is very much a mix of light and shade and includes songs and music along the way. The show involves 5 actor-musicians and is face-paced and dynamic; along with each main father character, the actors take on a whole range of parts to bring each story to life.
What will I experience?
The show is not always an easy watch. It deals with painful and powerful issues, such as grief, shame, loss, and guilt. It deals with questions of responsibility, of trust (or lack of it), and at bigger societal ideas about parenting and caring for children. It deals with what we expect of fathers, and mothers, and what we expect of social workers too. It also contains some strong language and loud noises. Again, it mixes the funny and the serious; there are lighter moments, and lots of humour, but you need to be ready for at least some of what you see to touch a nerve, and sometimes this can happen in ways that you don’t expect or can’t predict.
Who does the show focus on?
Each performance of ‘How’s Your Father?’ is preceded by a short introduction, given by Georgia Philip to prepare the audience for what they will see and to give some important context for the show. Almost all the fathers who took part in the research were from lower-income or working-class backgrounds, were heterosexual, and were White British. This means that the stories presented reflect that, and that other things that shape how men experience being a father, such as ethnicity, sexuality, or disability, are not directly explored. There are many, many stories of fatherhood to be told, and we hope that ‘How’s Your Father?’ can prompt more interest in reflecting and comparing experiences of fathers’ in different communities.
The Q&A Session
After each performance and after a short break, there is a 20-minute Q&A discussion with Georgia Philip, Simon Floyd and other members of the core team. The audience are invited to ask questions or share their responses to the performance and any wider issues they see as relevant. These discussions are chaired by Georgia Philip and occasionally, where appropriate, individual audience members might be signposted to other sources of information.
The In-Person Training Workshop
As part of the 2023 tour, we delivered whole-day events to local authorities, which involved a performance of the show, the Q&A discussion, and an in-person training workshop. The workshop is designed for small groups (between 10 and 20) practitioners to enable a deeper and more direct involvement with the content and characters from the show. The aim is to provoke curiosity and empathy. It includes a warm-up and a reflective activity to discuss the experience and learning and is two hours in total. We used established theatre-making techniques and exercises to devise activities to physically, mentally, and emotionally, engage participants. Each workshop involves two facilitators and one actor.
We set the following learning outcomes for the workshop:
- To try out creative and reflective thinking tools to support work with fathers.
- To gain insight into how social work/family support services might see ‘risks’ more than ‘needs’ when working with fathers.
- To engage with personal hopes and fears around trying to engage with fathers.
All our testimonials come from social workers, social work managers, and other child and family welfare professionals who saw the show and/or took part in the workshop in the Autumn of 2024.