Before Mum Points arrives on stage, we sat down with writer and director Jude Christian to explore the creative journey behind the production. Turning an academic study into a piece of theatre is no small task, and Jude has brought openness, curiosity and humour to every step of the process. In our conversation, she reflects on what’s been different about making work this way, the surprises she’s discovered along the path and the moments of inspiration that keep her creating. She also shares what she hopes audiences will carry with them long after the show ends.

Q: Can you explain the process of how you approached making an academic study into a piece of theatre?

J: Before writing the script, I did a week of research and development with actors and academics. We used details drawn from the interviews to foreground the everyday lives of the participants; the human stories behind the data. Then, using the research team’s key findings as a guide, we played with different theatrical forms (soundscape, direct address, interactive game-style storytelling) to try and find a playful but engaging way of getting the most important information across.

Q: Has anything been different about making a piece of theatre this way?

J: It’s unusual to be led by such a clear list of objectives; but it’s liberating too. We wanted to make something dramatically engaging, but having a specific target audience and purpose shaped a lot of our decisions around both content and form. It led us to an interactive form that’s part narrative storytelling, part chance-based board game – which feels like a risky way to approach the subject matter, but it allows us to put audiences in the interviewees’ shoes and highlight how much of life – and healthcare – is in the hands of fate.

Q: Are there things you have learnt or have surprised you?

J: There was a phrase in the research finding that really stayed with me, about some interviewees’ sense of “the provisional status of their motherhood”. In the R&D we talked a lot about the personal insecurity, situational uncertainty and biological precarity that almost everyone experiences when they’re becoming a parent, and how much harder it would be to do it all under added scrutiny, with the ever-present worry of separation. The idea of having to perform “being a good mum” was simultaneously hilarious and terrifying.

Q: What do you hope people will take away from Mum Points?

J: Empowerment, I hope – a confidence that even if you can’t solve massive problems, there are always little things you can do that genuinely make a huge difference to the people you’re caring for.

Q: Is there a piece of theatre that has inspired you recently?

J: I wandered around Marina Abramović’s Balkan Erotic Epic feeling so happy to be alive. A work that’s ingested all the happiness and howling of a woman’s life right from embryo fertilisation to the last bodily cell being chomped by worms, and invites you to wallow in the lot of it for as long as you like.