29 March - 2 April 2016, National Theatre | November 2015, BBC iPlayer | 22 - 25 July 2015, National Theatre | 8 - 11 January 2015, The Park Theatre
You say to me...
Your brain is broken.
It's like an adult's brain that doesn't work properly.
Created with cognitive neuroscientist Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and drawing upon the life experiences of the cast, Brainstorm is a thrilling exploration of the most frustrating, chaotic and exhilarating changes that will ever happen to us.
#C3Brainstorm digs into life's most frustrating, chaotic & exhilarating changes, drawing on the cast's experience & research by @sjblakemore
— David Cahill Roots (@6fthigh) March 14, 2017
Created and performed by
Michael Adewale, Doyin Ajiboye, Sama Aunallah, Yaamin Chowdhury, Jack Hughes, Noah Landoni, Dylan Lubo, Gracia Kayindo, Romeo Mika, Kassius Nelson, Tyrel Phan, Serafina Willow and Segen Yosife.
Created by
Ned Glasier, Emily Lim and the company
Design
Charlie Damigos
Lighting
Jo Town
Sound
Elena Pena
Movement
Daragh O'Leary
Consultant Neuroscientists
Professor Sarah Jayne Blakemore & Dr Kate Mills
Make your own version
Hundreds of youth theatres, schools and other groups around the world have made their own version of Brainstorm.
Buy the Brainstorm Blueprint now.
Production Gallery
Rehearsal Gallery
Feedback
Finally watched #ICTBrainstorm on iPlayer. Cried in my kitchen! #YouDontKnowItYet but young people will inspire you & change your life. #emo
— Em (@Em_Chappers) December 10, 2015
Heard myself as a parent tonight. Saw myself as a teenager. Stormingly honest & playful work from @ICTheatre @NationalTheatre #ICTbrainstorm
— Tim Crouch (@timcrouch1964) July 22, 2015
Just seen a BRILLIANT production called BRAINSTORM by the @ICTheatre at The Platform Islington .. Huge Talents across the ENTIRE production
— Steve Proctor (@stevenjproctor) March 21, 2013
Press
"This is a very cunningly put together piece, drawing with unflinching honesty on material excavated from the young people’s own lives ... and capturing the hormonal rush and wild mood swings of teenage existence."
**** Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
"A tour of the chaotic limbic system — a rush of risk-taking, caution-free chemicals – gets the audience joining in the truth-telling games with raucous abandon... yet the wires that are really getting crossed are those with worried parents, and it’s the white-hot pain of each bedroom confrontation that brands the heart."
***** Kate Maltby, The Times
"By the end of this beautifully conceived show, we see talent, and passion, and a group of young people trying their best to make sense of the world, while their constantly developing brains hurry to keep up."
**** Laura Barnett, The Observer
"The group don't just remind us what it is like to be young — they actively make us want to return to that time. Full of energy and more than a little cheeky humour, their wisdom and self-confidence is impressively beyond their years."
Academic Study
A research paper by Robert Blakey at the University of Oxford has shown that watching Brainstorm affected audience attitudes to youth crime.
Robert Blakey, the study’s author and a DPhil student at Oxford’s Centre for Criminology, said: ‘We all have this feeling that when we resist an impulse, we are deciding to resist that impulse – not our brain, but this mental sense of me that makes decisions free from biological constraints. But neuroscience suggests this just isn’t true. We are always affected by our brain – in every decision that we make.
‘After learning about the science of the teenage brain, the public may change how it views teenage offenders. And that’s exactly what happened after these theatre goers watched Brainstorm. They changed how they viewed teenage offenders.'