Mickey B
It's 2006 and I am standing in a bright sun-filled room in Maghaberry Prison with some of the prison's highest security prisoners. Many of them lifers, in for crimes I don't ask about and don't want to know about. I'm there to talk to them about Shakespeare.Ìý
I had gone through a lot of hoops to get to that room. The date had been arranged for months in advance, alond with who was coming with me, which car we were driving, it's registration and what equipment we were bringing with us. Forty-five minutes earlier I had gone through the first of many gates, faced a camera, and two seconds later a slightly stunned looking photo of me was scanned onto a laminated card and attached to my coat.Ìý
Then came the checks, but still in my head it was like an airport. I had no idea of being in a prison.ÌýI was there to interview the men as they started work on a film,Ìý
Mickey B,Ìýbased on Shakespeare's Macbeth. You can see a promotional video for the film but please note it contains images which some may find shocking or disturbing.
Four years later, I have the DVD in front of me. The press blurb reads "This is the film which got the hardest men in Northern Ireland's maximum security jail to perform Shakespeare. Now imagine talking face to face with those who did it. This is film from first hand experiences."Ìý
Tom Magill, the director from the Educational Shakespeare Company, is sitting opposite me in the Arts Extra studio with one of the men I met that day, Sam Henry. We talk about the film, why it's only now getting its UK premier (at the Belfast Film Festival), there was a 3 year delay put on it, the families of the victims of these men had to be consulted.Ìý
It's a powerful moment of what drama can do. Sam sums it up." I spent 26 years in prison, it cost £2.5 million pounds to keep me there, and the only time I got rehabilitated was doing Mickey B".Ìý
The next item I do on the show is about lobbying for funding for the arts. In my head I think anyone who says arts isn't worth funding may want to consider what Sam has just said.Ìý
By the way even though Mickey B has already played at the , to great acclaim, you can find out more about the film and how to see it by contacting the »å¾±°ù±ð³¦³Ù±ô²â.Ìý
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