Writer reveals how meeting victim’s sister inspired hard-hitting script

THE Split Second... cast members (from the left) Mark Newsome, Robert Mallard and Lucy Ward perform the play

SWEEPING into Oldham sixth forms for a series of breathtaking performances last November, play The Split Second left audiences stunned.

Born from the teenager-led Every Life Matters road safety campaign, the hard-hitting piece of theatre was inspired by Becca Dale, the sister of 15-year-old Christopher Dale, killed by a speeding driver in 2009.

As the cast prepares to return to local schools from tomorrow for a second round of performances, Lewis Jones speaks to writer Sarah Nelson about the day she embarked upon the project.

CAN a conversation change lives?

Sarah Nelson, writer of the hard-hitting play The Split Second, knows more than most the impact that one person’s story can have on a whole generation.

It was her initial conversation with Becca Dale, the sister of Chris Dale who was killed by a speeding driver in Lees Road, Salem, that tripped a switch in her head and prompted what would become a crusade.

A former drama teacher turned freelance writer and director, the 36-year-old produces a lot of her work for Oldham Theatre Workshop and was commissioned to turn the Oldham Youth Council’s dreams into reality.

Living in Stockport, she had never heard of Chris Dale, the devastating circumstances of his death or the growing Every Life Matters campaign.

“I knew I was going in to meet somebody who had been involved with some kind of personal experience.

“I was quite daunted by that,” she admits, recalling the stomach-churning moment at the start of last summer when she was introduced to her young clients.

Faced with Becca, and fellow youth council members Chantel Birtwistle and Charlotte Kilroy, Sarah was inspired by their openness.

“She opened the door to me. It was a really, really brilliant meeting. I said to Becca that if she felt uncomfortable with anything I was asking just to say so, but I was going to ask those questions as I needed to understand where she was coming from.

“I did ask her some difficult things, I wanted her to talk me through the worst things that happened that night.

“I remember moments in the meeting where I thought ‘Oh my God, I’m going to cry’ she was so open and honest.”

Several meetings with the group followed that initial discussion.

Sarah brought back three plot lines and options and spent the summer months penning the script.

But the challenging dialogue, that in turn made their working relationship flourish, was not always the easiest.

Questions over the message of the play arose.

“In the very first meeting she said to me, ‘I don’t want any sympathy for the driver,’” remembers Sarah.

“I went away and that was the only thing I felt a bit uncomfortable about.

“I said to her that it is drivers you want to speak to and if you want talk to them they have got to relate to the character.

“There is no point in them thinking that the driver is a stupid boy racer and they wouldn’t behave like that.

“The reality is in a lot of these accidents it is normal, nice kids who end up making a silly mistake — she had to go on a journey with that and come out the other side thinking that it should be about the driver.”

The result was an intimate portrayal of the turmoil involved in the fall-out from a horrifying accident.

Four characters are played by three actors.

A young, likeable lad is the central character, Jake, while changes in time and flash-forwards lead the audience to believe something terrible has happened to him.

With only slight parallels to the story of Chris Dale, knocked down in Lees, the piece becomes all the more poignant with an intimate audio of Becca’s voice talking about the night her brother died.

Getting swept away with the project, Sarah even attended the court case of the driver, 17-year-old Danny Pattinson, sentenced to two and a half years in jail last November for causing death by careless driving.

Sarah said: “From not knowing who Christopher Dale was to suddenly feeling connected to his story, that is one of the great things about being a writer.

“You immerse yourself in it and it takes you on a journey.”

Stunned silence and spontaneous shows of emotion greeted the first performances of the play as it made its way around Oldham sixth forms in November last year.

Now the cast has reunited, equipped with their stripped back set and harrowing script for another round of spellbinding performances.

The first will be at Our Lady’s School tomorrow, before moving on to Oldham College and the Blue Coat School, where Chris was a pupil.

It has now prompted an emerging conversation in the borough about the lasting effects of the campaign on the people it has already touched.

After the performances, members of the audience fill in postcards with a message to remind them of how the production left them feeling.

The raft of cards collected will be posted back to their home address as a short, sharp reminder.

But Sarah says from day one, Becca has never wanted it to be about her — but it is clear that she had certainly made in impression on the writer.

As the project progressed and the team was chipping ideas into how to develop the campaign, laughing and joking as teens do, Sarah would often catch a glimpse of Becca.

She said: “There are times when you catch a look across her face and it reminds you that it is her reality for her every day. She’s this beautiful little thing, who looks like she should be so timid, she’s incredibly bright, incredibly courageous and an absolute inspiration.

“I had to really engage with her story in order to do it justice.

“That meeting was crucial, if she hadn’t had thought that she could trust me then it wouldn’t have gone any further.

“The reason it has worked is because I met those girls and we connected straight away.

“She had an impact on me, it became a mission that I had to do a good job for her.

“We’re all on this collective journey.”

Faced with a decision of where to take the project next, the youth council has already started to explore possible routes for the project to grow.

Through the people it has already touched, and those it is yet to encompass, it would be hard to argue that the initial meeting was anything but a life-changing conversation.

“If it changes one person’s attitudes it has done its job,” says Sarah.