How to be Amazingly Happy - without kids at Oldham Coliseum

Performer, theatre maker and director Victoria Firth brings her autobiographical show How to Be Amazingly Happy to Oldham Coliseum’s Studio on Wednesday 2 October.

How do you find a new ‘once upon a time’ after the ‘happy ever after’ never turned up?

Victoria is on a quest to discover how you make a new life when you can’t have the one you imagined. In this big hearted, big thinking show of storytelling and physical comedy our heroine’s mid-life search for joy, identity and belonging features public displays of playfulness, private truths and sheer bloody mindedness.

Join Victoria as she asks - is it possible to be happy without kids?

The launch of the 2019 tour of How To Be Amazingly Happy coincides with World Childless Week (16 – 22 September 2019), which aims to help those that are childless despite their longing to be a parent to find support groups that understand their grief and can help them move forwards.

The number of childless women is increasing – For those born in 1946 just 9% had no children at 45 – the age the ONS defines as the end of childbearing years[i].

For women born in 1971 this figure has risen to 18%. Around 1 in 7 couples (approximately 3.5 million people in the UK) may have difficulty conceiving[ii]. 47,422 women are receiving IVF, but the treatment fails 70% of the time[iii].

How to be Amazingly Happy! cuts across art forms to tell Victoria’s autobiographical story of wondering whether to have kids, seeking medical intervention, coming up empty handed and ultimately coming to terms with and discovering what to do with the second half of her life as a non-mother.

Victoria commented: “I hope the show will resonate with the many woman not sure whether to have kids or without the right partner/circumstance to match their white picket fence dreams, the many people who have IVF, those that don’t, won’t or can’t have children and how they build a life outside of the accepted trajectory.

Family diversity is greater than ever but there is still very little social validation for women who don’t have kids.

I think a lot of women end up in complicated discussions with themselves about having children and/or are worried what life looks like without taking that step.

What I hope people take away is a story of reinvention that inspires them to be more daring in being themselves and being happy”

How to be Amazingly Happy includes storytelling, physical comedy, clowning techniques, audio recordings and live art influences. It comes to Oldham Coliseum Studio on Wednesday 2 October. 

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[1] The Telegraph ‘Proportion of women who never have children has doubled in a generation, ONS figures show’ Olivia Rudgard 24th November 2017.

[1] www.nhs.uk/conditions/imfertility/ accessed 6/5/18

[1] www.wellbeingofwomen.org.uk/fertility-journey-bbc-reporter-shares-heartbreak-failed-ivf/ accessed 6/5/18

 

 

 

 

 

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