Description
Written by Somebody Jones.
★★★★★ “an immense tale, very well told” – Afridiziak Theatre News
★★★★ “take my advice and grab a ticket” – All That Dazzles
★★★★ “extraordinary” – The Guardian (Review from Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024)
★★★★★ “a must see for anyone who needs a thought-provoking, spiritual experience” – A Young(ish) Perspective (Review from Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024)
★★★★★ “an excellent hour of honest and heartfelt storytelling” – Broadway World (Review from Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024)
Jamie can’t swim. Bit awkward when you’re 30. Fuelled by guilt and a need to mend her broken family, Jamie is taking on her biggest fear. The ocean.
With the help of a chipper swim instructor, a shady spiritual guide and one cathartic crab sandwich, she’s questioning, ‘How many lengths does it take to wash away regret?’
Brilliantly witty, deeply heartfelt, this play explores what lies beneath the surface of Black people’s relationship to water.
Somebody Jones’ searing debut is “funny with fear, liberating with grief” (Fringe Review) and impossible to walk away from unchanged.
Content warnings
References to mental illness, suicide, grieving and death of a family member. Descriptions of drowning. Indirect references to Middle Passage and Black diasporic trauma.
Trailer
Watch the trailer for How I Learned to Swim
Cast
JAMIE: Frankie Hart
Creative team
Writer: Somebody Jones
Director/Dramaturg: Emma Jude Harris
Designer: Debbie Duru
Lighting Designer: Ali Hunter
Sound Designer/Composer: Nicola T. Chang
Associate Sound Designer: Hattie North
Producer: Rebecca Prentice
Technical Stage Manager: Josephine Shipp
Assistant Stage Manager: Leigh Arthur