Play explores how Thatcher's 'short, sharp, shock' for wayward youth in 80s scarred for life
A gripping, devastating and true story of how life inside a youth detention centre failed three working-class men is touring to Derbyshire.
Bad Lads by Mike Kenny is created from the testimony of former inmates at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre in County Durham in the 1980s. Sold to the public as a ‘short, sharp, shock’ for wayward youth, behind the walls of the prison hid something much darker.
The play looks at what happened to these young men, revealing how it still impacts their lives some forty years after the events. At a time when the cry for accountability is louder than ever; Bad Lads demands remembrance and calls for justice.
Disability led theatre company Graeae will present Bad Lads at Derby Theatre on November 7 and 8, 2025, in a production which integrates British Sign Language (BSL), audio description and creative captions.
Jenny Sealey, artistic director of Graeae, directs the play. She said: “I have been with the Bad Lads men’s stories since 2021. They have been holding them for over forty years. It is time for them to be heard and for this living history of government funded brutality to be out in the public domain. We are very privileged the men have trusted Graeae to take care of them, yet not shy away from the truth.”
The production will feature Robin Paley Yorke as Younger Jackie, Danny Raynor as Older Jackie alongside performance interpreter, Craig Painting.
Suitable for 16+ years, the performance will run in Derby Theatre’s studio. Tickets cost £17 and £15 (under 26), book at www.derbytheatre.co.uk or call 01332 59 39 39.
*More than 2,000 former inmates at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre came forward to report that they had been abused between 1961 and 1987. A huge police investigation, Operation Seabrook, was launched in 2013 but there were only single-figure convictions.