Interview with Henri Merriam

Following critical acclaim and a successful previous run, Play Nicely Theatre's There is a Light and a Whistle for Attracting Attention embarks on a new tour this summer. Written and performed by Henri Merriam and directed by Sophia Capasso, the production uses the breakdown of a marriage to examine society's romantic ideals, coercive relationships, and the stories women are taught to believe about love. Ahead of the tour, we spoke with Henri about transforming personal experiences into theatre, challenging romantic narratives, and finding humour alongside heartbreak.

There is a Light and a Whistle for Attracting Attention is rooted in deeply personal experiences. At what point did you realise this story needed to become a play?

I don’t think I did initially. I have only ever acted and produced so writing a play wasn’t something that I had really considered. I wrote the piece originally as a stream of consciousness - but the fragmented nature of what I had originally written lent itself to being a series of scenes. I write like I speak and I think it would become a bit more frustrating in a book - you can get away with that in theatre with all the other bells and whistles.

You have spoken about writing the piece as a way of making sense of a period when you felt unable to control the narrative around your own life. How did the writing process help you reclaim that narrative?

I guess I was just journaling at first. I think in these situations the victim becomes smaller but the narrative around them becomes huge and originally started writing down conversations that I was having within this disintegrating relationship and looking at them as objectively as I could on paper. Also I guess I thought that if it was written down verbatim it couldn’t be used against me in the future. It is very unsettling when someone is constantly correcting your version of events and telling you that you are a certain type of person, but you believe something totally different. I was convinced that if my version of events was so skewed then I must be insane. I remember one afternoon sitting on my bed wondering if I could call my local GP and ask them to put me somewhere safe because I was convinced that I was going mad. Writing was a form of catharsis but ultimately it was what I believed the “truth” to be in a world where I had nothing else to cling on to. That’s the insidious nature of coercive control. Additionally, where I was living everyone knew everyone - so I became convinced that everybody knew how awful I was. Writing became a way to anchor myself in the moments when I was alone and stop my brain whirring.

The play explores the stories women are told about romance, marriage and happiness. Were there particular books, films or cultural influences that inspired this examination?

So many. I think that originally I wanted to explore why I had “failed” in this arena of expected wifeliness (not a word). I had been to an all girls school where they suggested the students would make “good wives and mothers”. I found the idea horrifying - I wanted to paddle my own canoe not help my husband (if I ever got married) paddle his. I had always thought the bedrock to a lot of the literature that I loved as a kid and the strongest idea of a flawed woman was Eve. I have always been fascinated by the idea of this woman who had wrecked it for mankind. At a risk of exposing how naive I am, I genuinely believed that men had fewer ribs than women for a shockingly long time. But once I’d got over the shame of that ignorance I was more interested in how completely I had bought into something and in the same way how I had bought into other references of romance and marriage. Even if I didn’t necessarily believe them, they informed something within me. But for the rest of the references, I don’t want to spoiler it, you’ll have to come and see the play….

The title is wonderfully intriguing. What is the story behind There is a Light and a Whistle for Attracting Attention?

I’m not a very good flyer so I listen very attentively to the safety briefing on a plane. I’ve always found it ridiculous that it’s implied a tiny little whistle and light would help you if you made it into one piece in the sea - the huge great sea, which would just swallow you up. It seemed absurd.

But when everything seemed to be going wrong, I kept coming back to the metaphor of drowning; overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation. As I navigated through that time, the idea of that lifejacket started to resonate with me and I realised that it doesn’t matter how small the light is, it just matters that it is shining, or how small the sound of your whistle is - someone might hear. These two tiny objects are embers of hope and you have them at your disposal, even if you feel like you’re metaphorically at sea.

One of the play's strengths is its balance between humour and heartbreak. Why was it important to find moments of comedy within such difficult subject matter?

If you don’t laugh you cry right? I got to a stage during this part of my life where I thought I was in an episode of Eastenders or that I was living a bad joke. But comedy has always held hands with tragedy. And there is a lot of laughter and joy in the show. It felt initially that audiences were nervous of laughing, but the serious subject matter is intertwined with the character just living, and there's joy in that. I think my favourite moment of that period was going to a couple’s therapy session and bringing up the idea that my ex-partner might have been gaslighting me. The (male) therapist turned round and started to explain to me what gas-lighting meant - that it was based on a play, that it meant this, this this… on and on he went. I sat there thinking “Wow, I’m being gaslit and mansplained to by a therapist. This can’t get any worse”. It was funny - maybe I didn’t find it as funny at the time. But the subject matter is quite heavy so it needs to be lightened - and the ultimate story is one of hope.

How has your relationship with the material evolved since the play first premiered?

The best thing about being an actor is getting to be there with a different audience each night; their presence definitely made me realise what was working, what people were confused by, what could be leant into. I think the show was easier to settle into when I realised that a lot of people get it. As the character starts to get sucked into the gaslighting world it does start to get quite abstract and the character starts to anchor herself with the stories she has been told to avoid the pain of the real time interactions with her partner. When you can really feel the audience understand that and you can feel that they are happy to hop from scene to scene, it gives you a freedom. Some audiences have really enjoyed the humour - and it’s hard not to lean into that lightness when people are with you on that. There have been a couple of moments where I’ve heard people in the audience twigging what’s going to happen too - I love that. That and when certain barbs land - an audible gasp. The little bit of past me wants to stop and say “yeah, you’re right! that was a horrid thing to say”.

The narrator contrasts fairy-tale notions of love with the reality of her relationship. Why do you think those romantic ideals remain so powerful today?

I genuinely don’t know. It’s so entrenched. I wonder if girls growing up now have the same ideals - sorry (and also not that sorry) to bring it back to Disney, but Frozen shifting that dynamic from being saved by a man to this idea of sisterhood felt huge (for me). I babysat a kid once who was very concerned about the fact that I was single. She turned to me in total earnest and said “Don’t worry Henri, one day a man will come and sweep you off your feet”. I remember thinking that was so wholesome and sweet (which it was from her) but increasingly the notion becomes a bit cloying. The idea that I needed someone to save me? But save me from what? It’s a constant battle within me that I want this big idea of romantic love but I also don’t buy into it at all. Maybe I feel that if I give in to this old fashioned notion of a man being my romantic hero, I will have to give up a part of myself to be the damsel. And I’m definitely not a damsel.

Self-blame is a recurring theme within the play. Why was it important to explore that aspect of the experience?

I think in this situation most people are made to think that it is their fault. That’s the potency of gaslighting and psychological abuse. The power of the perpetrator is to make you think it’s you making things up - you and your overactive imagination. It’s also very easy to sell that narrative to other people - especially in the environment I lived in: a load of farmers and the actor - yeah, of course it’s her fault and she’s the problem. So I think part of the self-blame in the show is the character being pushed into that corner. BUT, I think anyone in a situation when a relationship goes wrong has enough self-awareness to realise that it’s not all the other person’s fault. I’m not naive enough to believe that I’m perfect - I think that the female character here is to blame on some levels, but I think that what I found most interesting when I was writing the play was that so often women are blamed for not wanting to fit into a certain mould. The female character here wants to find room for herself in the marriage - and is worried from the start that she won’t make the standard expected of her. But the model is antiquated. I don’t want to have to perch on the shoulder of a man as “his wife” - I don’t know many women of my age who do. We want space for ourselves, it’s amazing how some men don’t like that - that it feels like it emasculates them.

But I didn't want to create a character who is a victim; she's acerbic and tricky and she’s not an angel. I like seeing flawed characters on stage.

Director Sophia Capasso is known for her focus on text-led and character-driven storytelling. What has she brought to the production as a collaborator?

So much. It must be tricky working with someone who has written a piece and is in it - especially as it is rooted in reality; but one of Sophia’s many talents as a director is making space for you as a person and you as the storyteller, which is a delicate balance. We first met before our initial R and D three years ago - my producer and I had interviewed her and were desperate to work with her but it didn’t work out that time. When our original director had to step back we were straight on the phone to her. We got on really well, and she knew immediately what she wanted to do with the piece, how to navigate through it. And most importantly I trust her implicitly so if she says something works, I know it works. The rehearsal room is always a place of joy on this piece, which is all anyone ever wants. She also shares my obsession with Co-op salt and vinegar crisps which is a pre-requisite in our rehearsal room.

How did the rehearsal process help shape the final version of the piece?

I have had so much help. When I initially wrote the show it was full of scenes with the two main characters; it was very very heavy and there were huge chunks of Shakespeare, Chaucer, Bible, Greek myth interwoven through it. It was very muddled and dense.

In our initial R and D, the wonderful Ellice Stevens of Breach Theatre came in to direct and helped me to write and thin down the main bulk of the show; I’ve always really admired Breach and their work and Ellice had a myriad ways of getting me to write scenes when I didn't know how to get the ideas down on paper.

Breach then got a run at the Royal Court, so Ellice couldn’t join our next leg, but luckily we had met Sophia and knew we wanted her to pick up the reins. I also had an amazing dramaturg Nicola Sanderson, who was feeding back on the play from the very start. So the rehearsal really was such a collaboration. Sophia understood where I wanted to go with the piece and the rest of our production team: Frazer (our sound designer), Shahaf (our designer) and our original producer Mark Finbow were also there every step of the way.

The set and the sound do a lot of the heavy lifting and we were really fortunate that we had a lot of time through ACE funding and funding from the Seagull Theatre in Lowestoft.

Play Nicely Theatre has built a reputation for intimate, audience-focused storytelling. What draws you to that style of theatre-making?

I try to create the kind of theatre that I would like to watch - and I enjoy watching a lot of different things, but I especially love theatre that entertains me as well as asking me questions - they don’t have to be loud questions, but I like going home and thinking about what I have seen. I really enjoy engaging audiences in topics that they might think aren’t their thing - it doesn’t always work, but sometimes you get someone saying “Oh I thought that was going too much, but I really enjoyed it”. Just one person saying that and then being bolder and going to something they might not have otherwise thought they would like next time - it’s pretty cool. That is also one of the powers of smaller studio pieces - you get to be in such close proximity to the audience - you can take the story to them in a way that you can’t in bigger venues. It also means you can see if they’re having a nap, but there are plenty of places in this piece where I can ramp up the volume and wake them up.

The production is supporting Women for Women International. Why was partnering with the charity important to you?

The work Women for Women do is incredibly important and focuses on the connection of women with other women. They are a brilliant charity that promote women championing each other and through that, themselves. I’m not alone in believing that theatre and art can change people’s outlooks (look at Mr Bates vs the Post Office) and it’s become increasingly important to our work - especially when it deals with something topical - to support a charity. Women for Women, for this show, couldn’t be more apt. The main character of our story is supported (on the whole) by a whole cast of women - it’s about women lifting themselves up - surviving and understanding themselves well enough to be their own cheerleaders.

What have you learned about yourself through sharing this story with audiences?

The first shows we did last year were in Brighton. The audience was about half a metre from me. I don’t think I have ever been so close to an audience and felt so exposed, especially as the show was quite fresh then. In that moment I seriously questioned the wisdom of performing a show I had written to a group of people that might not enjoy it.

But increasingly it became more and more enjoyable. I think some people suspected that the story was largely autobiographical but lots of people didn’t know and there’s a freedom and catharsis in that. I have never been at ease with people not liking the work I do - I wish I could be - but I myself don’t like some theatre, and some art and it’s not personal - it just doesn’t sing to me that day. So there’s a great freedom in sharing a story and realising hey, they might not like it, it’s not personal. And ironically the more I do the show, the more I feel that it’s a story that happened to someone else, I feel like I am now looking at it as an actor with the audience. It’s something our dramaturg Nic always said to me “One day it’ll just feel like something that happened to you and it won’t hurt anymore”. And she was right.

What do you hope people who see the production take away from it, particularly those who may recognise elements of their own experiences within the story?

I think that the main thing we want people to take away is that walking away is ok. It sounds so trite, especially as there are obviously so many different and also much more severe cases of coercive control than this one and I don’t want to trivialise that - it’s so often not as simple as that. But the one thing that the character in the show realises is that she is ok alone, that she is strong, that she can heal. There have been lots of people who have seen themselves in this character. I think most obviously because gaslighting leaves bruises on your mind. The play started its life with the title “Just because you didn’t hit her” and I think the switch to the current title speaks more for us as women. We can save ourselves. It’s in our power to use the light and the whistle. Someone will see and hear. You just have to ask.

Finally, what are you most looking forward to as the production tours Norwich, Buxton, Manchester and London this summer?

I can’t wait to get back into the rehearsal room - we have had a few rewrites, a few new shiny things to add to the set but it’s a great tour and we can’t wait to share it with new audiences.

Thank you, Henri, for taking the time to speak with me about There is a Light and a Whistle for Attracting Attention. The production will tour to Norwich, Buxton, Manchester and London between 17 July and 13 September 2026, with performances at The Garage, Underground at the Working Men's Club as part of Buxton Fringe, The Squad House at Greater Manchester Fringe, and The Hen & Chickens Theatre Bar in London.

For tickets and further information, visit: www.playnicelytheatre.com.