Retelling the asylums. Harriet Vickers on “The Knitting Circle”

Years of experiences and memories have gone into Julie McNamara’s play The Knitting Circle. Examining the long stay hospitals of the 80s and 90s, through the lives of patients and healthcare workers who inhabited them, the piece takes us through the transition from institution to community care. McNamara is still working on the play, it’s […]

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Tauseef Mehrali: Attack of the clipboards

I sat riveted through Kenneth Branagh’s perceptive portrayal of Ivanov in Chekhov’s eponymous play. Witnessing the desperate depression of the protagonist unfold I couldn’t help thinking how many points he would score on a Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), a common screening tool for depression in primary care and a burdensome necessity for accurate clinical coding […]

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