Blood Orange, Tania Amsel’s upbeat and heartfelt new one-woman play brings the life of junior doctors in A&E over the holiday season to light. Amy is an example of the thousands working in the NHS – and by making her story personal and relatable, the audience can join in Amy’s journey exploring her past, which is inextricably linked to her stressful life in a hospital A&E department and what the future may look like. The show is supporting the Great Ormond Street Hospital by raising awareness of childhood cancer, plus supporting mental health charity SANE and the impact of staff’s mental health in a busy hospital.
“My next patient is… Santa, smelling strongly of booze, he attempted to climb down a chimney, safe to say it didn’t go to plan..”
It’s Christmas Eve in Swansea A&E and Amy has just vomited all over a hot doctor’s shoes. Amy is not a patient at the hospital… she’s a Junior Doctor… Hoping to secure a transfer to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, Amy can handle the long hours, the overtime, and even the shame of vomiting on her colleague’s shoes; but when assigned to the case of a boy with cancer, Amy is confronted with childhood memories she thought she’d forgotten and the pressure begins to take its toll. When helping others is at the heart of your career, what happens when you are suddenly the one that needs help?
Blood Orange is a new one-woman play that explores themes of love, loss and childhood trauma with pathos, dry wit, and a twist of dark comedy, researched with doctors and medical staff about how their workload creates stress in a medical context but added to that caring for their patients emotionally often takes priority over their own well-being.
Playwright and performer Tania Amsel has written for the Tron Theatre Glasgow and Women@RADA. She has performed in Bloody Men (Arcola Theatre), Just To Get Married (Finborough), Chatroom (Etcetera Theatre), At War With Love (Edinburgh Fringe), Lollipop (Monologue Slam), The Dance Hall (Blue Elephant), Never Have I Ever (Arcola), and Exchange & Mart (BAFTA winning short film).
Blood Orange is at The Old Red Lion Theatre 10th December 2019 to 4th January 2020.
