Additional information
by Stephen Unwin (Author), Sara Ryan (Based on a Book by)
Connor is, well, Connor. He loves buses, Eddie Stobart and Lego. He also has learning disabilities. When he dies an entirely preventable death in NHS care, his mum, Sara, can't get a straight answer as to how it happened.
But Sara and her family won't stop asking questions and soon an extraordinary campaign emerges. Demanding the truth, it uncovers a scandal of neglect and indifference that goes beyond Connor's death to thousands of others.
Sara Ryan's impassioned, frank and surprisingly funny memoir Justice for Laughing Boy is adapted for the stage by Stephen Unwin. It was first performed at Jermyn Street Theatre, London, in 2024, in a co-production with Theatre Royal Bath.
Author Biography
Stephen Unwin is one of the UK's leading theatre and opera directors. He founded English Touring Theatre in 1993 and opened the Rose Theatre Kingston in 2008, becoming Artistic Director until 2014. He has written guides to Shakespeare's and Brecht's plays, as well as to Ibsen, Chekhov, Strindberg, and Twentieth-Century Drama. He is also the author of The Complete Brecht Toolkit and So You Want To Be A Theatre Director?
As a writer for the stage, his work includes: Laughing Boy, adapted from Sara Ryan's book Justice for Laughing Boy (Jermyn Street Theatre, London, 2024) and All Our Children (Jermyn Street Theatre, 2017).
He is a campaigner for the rights and opportunities of people with learning disabilities and was appointed the Chair of KIDS in November 2016, the national charity providing services to disabled children, young people and their families.
Sara Ryan is a Professor of Social Care at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is the author of Justice for Laughing Boy: Connor Sparrowhawk - A Death by Indifference, about the death of her autistic son Connor while in an NHS care unit.
