A mother's response to her son's online shock inspires play

PARENTING, porn and media pressure all come under the spotlight in a woman’s very personal play coming to Doncaster’s Cast theatre soon.

Punching The Sky is a true story about an 11-year old boy’s experience of stumbling across brutal online pornography – and his mother’s and the media’s response.

The personal account is written and performed by the boy’s mother, Lizi Patch, and considers the public and media response to a blogpost she wrote about the experience in her attempt to reach out and make sense of what she saw as a major failure as a parent.

Punching The Sky combines live performance with animation, puppetry and an original score.

It will be performed on Wednesday, March 23, starting at 7.45pm.

The play explores the contradictory nature of society’s feelings about sex, censorship and parenthood.

Lizi Patch said that her son’s experience of seeing the pornography had badly effected him.

She said: “He told me that he could never ‘unsee it’ and, very significantly, he talked about how his childhood was effectively finished. He experienced an instant and brutal loss of innocence.”

Tickets for Punching The Sky cost £10.50 or £8.50 concessions.

To book call 01302 303959 or visitcastindoncaster.com