TiE Today in Wales, Author: Edward David Humphreys, University of Chester

participants” (Weler & Wulf, 2006, p187) and allows the students to transition from a
lack of awareness for the issue raised to one where there is reasonable knowledge
of the criminal justice system.
In this section, I analyse the way space can affect the engagement with the issues in
TiE. In the theatre, the young participants were welcomed into the story and see the
case unfold. The children also witnessed the arrest of Connor and the police
interview. Although we were in a space that did not in any way represent these
rooms, the illustration from Martin and Rees-Davies strongly supported the
participants before performing the scene. This could be seen particularly by those
participants who played two of the roles in the scene, where the close proximity with
the performers seemed to make a stronger impact. Similarly, towards the end, where
Connor is waiting for his parents to visit, the previous illustration made the space of
the theatre world clear to the audience. When waiting for his parents, I noticed how
two or three children kept looking over towards the door of the ‘visiting room’, as
illustrated by Martin prior to the scene. This may have worked well because of
Johnston’s restrictions of space theory, where “one tactic is to give different
restrictions to different actors” (Johnston, 2006, p249) which creates a stronger
sense of where they might be. Here, Connor was restricted to the chair and to the
pathway he entered, unlike the security guard, who could roam freely. The theatre
space allowed a lot of flexibility for the story, discussion and activities. In the court,
the participants immediately acted differently. The presence of security checks as
they entered and the presence of a real magistrate all add to the formality and status
of the building, which imposed itself on the children. This example of how space has
affected the participants echoes Nicholson when she discusses “…a space is never
empty; it always carries social connotations and it is always someone else’s place”
29 | P a g e