A verbatim play written by Mark Wheeller using the testimonies of Daniel Spargo-Mabbs’ friends and family. In the summer of 2020, we made a brand new stage version and live film recording of Mark Wheeller's powerful and moving play.

We hope this will bring the play to many more drama studios and classrooms across the country and around the world, with its important messages of risk, choice and consequence, friendship, forgiveness, love and loss. The play is topped and tailed by filmed interviews with Dan’s mother and father and his girlfriend Jenna, communicating the love he inspired.It includes a detailed scheme of work created by Annette Hulme, Head of Academic Drama at Leicester Grammar School. A talented, creative and “lovely boy” with a passion for helping others who’s always on the side of the underdog. Dan loved drama, and his school drama teacher, Izzy Forrester, became one of the first Trustees of the DSM Foundation.

Predicated partly on Black History Month, Elayne Ogbeta’s muliti-layered play presents Grandad (Marcus Hercules) and his primary school age granddaughter, Abi (Jazmine Wilkinson) in his garden. Wheeller used transcripts from Dan's friends and family covering his life, experiences and the fateful night on which he died. An important and often overlooked route into the industry, especially for many non-performing roles.

This verbatim book draws on the testimony of the many people involved in creating the play, from Dan’s family and friends who gave their words, to the young people and team of Oasis Youth Theatre, who worked with Mark on the original production that became the published play. We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps and external Video providers.

It's powerful, not only because it's truthful, but because of the hard-hitting words used by real people that convey their devastation and loss. Elliot Montgomery’s production for Octopus Dream Theatre is powerful, poignant and intensely moving, from the boisterous roistering of the early stages to a quiet stillness that overwhelms the audience. This powerful and engaging verbatim production tells the story of what happened to Dan, his family and friends, from heartbreak to redemption. This poignant and eminently readable biography of the play is drawn from interviews with Dan’s family, friends and the OYT company.Don’t miss Mark Wheeller’s beautifully-written play and Octopus Dream’s acclaimed production, touring to theatres for the first time, following highly successful tours to secondary schools across the country. With three separate Lucian Freud exhibitions currently on, Graham Hooper took time to visit and here is his review of these contrasting shows. Most telling of all Amy Zoldan as Alice wrestles with her conscience as the person who everyone blames for Dan’s death. What’s most moving about this show is the painful honesty of it: the script contains all the teenage awkwardness you would expect from verbatim responses, and to their credit, the company capture this in the integrity of their performance …It’s the finest production I’ve seen so far this year…Take your children.

His plays are extensively used in the drama curriculum in schools, he has been one of the playwrights recommended in the Edexcel GCSE drama syllabus for many years. His friend, Jack while dealing with the trauma feels gratitude that they were together in Dan's last conscious moments and yes, in those last conscious moments, He was happy. So, when the tragedy happened, his Drama teacher contacted playwright Mark Wheeller with the suggestion of using Dan as the subject for a play.by Louisa Reid Published by Guppy Books Cassandra, narrator of this powerful verse novel, is a reluctant sixth former in a prestigious mixed school, formerly all boys, where toxic culture simmers. Spargo-Mabbs OBE, said: “This is such an exciting development for us as a drug education charity, and also as Dan’s mum and dad. I remember crying as I related it to my wife – not because it was sad, but because it was brimful of love. A talented, creative “lovely boy” with a passion for helping others who’s always on the side of the underdog.