‘All around you see us.
Broken, breaking, mending,
Don’t pretend you can’t hear us too.’
This anthology is testimony, resistance, a nationwide act of creative truth-telling. This is More Than One Story.
For over thirty years, Cardboard Citizens has harnessed the power of theatre and storytelling to change the narrative of homelessness and poverty for individuals and society. More Than One Story is the company’s first-ever anthology: a groundbreaking collection of new writing by thirty-seven emerging and established writers from across the UK with lived experience of homelessness, poverty and inequity.
From sofa-surfing and street-sleeping to the rental industry, citizenship, identity and mental health, these monologues shift between imagined futures and urgent realities, encompassing resilience, hope, rage and humour, to offer a multifaceted portrait of homelessness and poverty in the UK today.
Featuring original pieces from Sonali Bhattacharyya, Malorie Blackman, Chris Bush, Kayleigh Llewellyn, Michelle De Swarte, Inua Ellams, Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini, Debbie Hannan, Charlie Josephine, Errol McGlashan, Neetu Singh, Chris Sonnex, Joelle Taylor, Naomi Westerman, Roy Williams, alongside twenty-two new works from a national open call – and a foreword by BAFTA Award-winning actor Michael Sheen.
‘This book is unlike anything else – it brings together voices and experiences of homelessness and poverty that are too often ignored, but that carry incredible power, honesty, and humanity’ Rory Kinnear
‘A groundbreaking collection of monologues… peppered with wit and humour [but] there’s a bubbling underlying anger… profound and resonant… hard-hitting… full of personality, sass, and depth… intelligent windows into a reality we’re trained to look away from… rich and powerful… an urgent call to action’
— Broadway World
‘Resilience, anger, hope, pain and sprinkles of humour throughout… the stories [in this anthology] range from sofa-surfing, council housing applications, disability support, public perceptions of homelessness and more. From Malorie Blackman’s ‘Ladies Who Lunch’, which brutally interrogates public perceptions and discomfort around begging, to Jordan Grant’s ‘Man. Up’, which hauntingly explores dispossession and the greediness of investors, More Than One Story is an enlightening read for anyone who does not share these experiences… urgent and special… reinforces why more should be done to make art accessible for all’
— Theatre & Tonic
