Join us for a wonderful evening where we explore death and end-of-life through storytelling and theatre with the wonderful Jane Flood and Christine Sweetman-Willis.

'Mother and Daughter: Journey to the End' by Christine Sweetman-Willis:

Christine Sweetman Willis is an actor, performer and singer. She likes to create performances born of a real life story. She then weaves these histories into a live piece using music , photography and text.

‘Mother and Daughter: Journey to the end’ is her life story and her history with her mother up until her death at home in Dublin.

Christine’s piece is an all revealing exposé of her Irish family life. Born the youngest of nine living children and two still births, Christine plots the history of her deep relationship with her mother and consequently with her mother’s all consuming grief and losses through the death of Christine's sister when she was two, the deep consequences of that on her mother, her father and the whole family. Her mother’s depression and absence as a mother, the death of her father when she was ten years old and being then brought up by seven mothers; her sisters.

Christine was left solely as a young teenager to mind her mother and she became both independent and trapped by this relationship. Christine left for Australia but it took travelling the world and landing up in Weston Super Mare that enabled her to rebuild her love of her mother and to forgive and ultimately to be there at her deathbed in the family home in Dublin telling her mother she loved her and thanking her for all she had done.

As part of the show Christine is asking the audience (if they would like) to bring a copied photo of their mother or their daughter to be pinned up as part of the show piece and they will all be given a ceremonial send off at the end of the performance.

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'Dancing with Death' by Jane Flood

In 'Dancing with Death' Jane Flood will take you on a journey with traditional stories from around the world that grapple with the greatest mystery of them all.

Jane has been telling traditional stories and running workshops since 1994 . Her work has taken her to East Africa with UNICEF, Nepal, and Tibet with the Himalayan Broadcasting Company and Peru and Ecuador with The British Council.

In the past ten years her focus has moved nearer to home in response to a growing awareness of Climate Change and Environmental Issues.

She has been storyteller in residence for The Mendip Hills, The Blackdown Hills, The North Somerset Coast and most recently the Avalon Marshes

Currently she is working on an ongoing project in Zanzibar which involves collecting traditional stories from village elders with the task of crafting these stories to be made into a book to be used in Swahili speaking schools.

Stories are her passion and she strongly believes that as well as offering entertainment they are tools for discovery of the self and a way to grapple with the complicated conundrum of what it means to be human.

Pushing Up The Daisies Festival is bringing these two performers together for a shared evening at the Bennet Centre, Frome. Both women have will share their life-and-death experience in their own way. Their stories might resonate with you, surprise you, move you or leave you feel less alone on the journey that we all take through life and death.