In the run-up to the anniversary of the Manchester Arena attack, the Hope Theatre Company have been working on their most important project yet.
Based on the life of Martyn Hett, one of the 22 victims of last yearâs terror attack, â#BeMoreMartynâ is riotous, fun-filled trip down memory lane, as eight actors - playing Martynâs real friends - recall his most fabulous moments.
The play takes its name from the hashtag that trended for days, as his friends and loved ones called for people to âbe more Martynâ in the wake of his death. The play, producer Adam Zane explains, will give people a sense of what the hashtag means.
âWe want the audience to leave inspired by Martyn and feel empowered because he didnât just like things, he loved things,â he tells HuffPost UK. âAnd he was proud of the things he loved.â
He was famed for it too, as Martynâs love of âCoronation Streetâ and his leg tattoo of character Deidre Barlow helped earned him an army of online followers.
His passion is something Adam feels very inspired by, explaining: âWhen I was a kid I hid what music I liked because I was scared to admit I liked Kylie, because I was trying to fit in.
âIâm in my 40s and there are still moments when perhaps, I donât necessarily tell people that Iâm gayâŠI might just not bring it up and why? Why am I doing that? Why not be more Martyn and just be myself? Itâs about how he continues to inspire people.â
The script of â#BeMoreMartyn: The Boy With The Deidre Tattooâ - to give the production its full, glorious title - was created from interviews with Martynâs friends, a verbatim approach that the theatre company specialises in. They each sat down, one-by-one, to talk about their friend and an early version of the play was performed at a memorial event last October.
Following its success - including praise from Martynâs pals whoâve since found themselves as characters - the friends agreed to be interviewed again. Rewrites and rehearsals then commenced, and as Adam attempted to turn over 20 hours of interviews into a two-hour play, it was announced that the new version would debut to mark the anniversary of the attack.
I arrive at their rehearsal space on one afternoon, the week before opening night. The company are practicing a scene that takes place on Canal Street, a bar-lined road which runs through the centre of Manchesterâs gay district, and it doesnât take long to get a sense of what Martyn was like.
âHe just loved bringing everyone together,â says one character, describing the random selection of people who were on this particular night out. âWhatever stage there was, of course, heâd be on it,â laughs another.
âThis is how he lived his life,â a third character says, gesturing at the others doing shots and dancing. âAnd how he taught everyone else to.â
Itâs laugh out loud funny, with scenes about dogging hotspots and run-ins with law enforcement (not at the same time) and it truly says it all that without being on stage, Martyn is still the star of the show.
âWhat you get from the play is a real sense of a man who lived every single second of his life,â explains Bridget Gallagher, who plays Hannah. âHeâs a very exuberant character who was friends with so many different people.
âWe would utilise a lot of the stuff that went on, crazy little events like holidays to Blackpool that sounded hilarious. When he took characters from âCoronation Streetâ and things in the media, and made them really funny.
âThatâs what we want to tell people: This guy had a really funny outlook in life.â
What the play doesnât do, is concentrate on the attack itself. While a number of the friends discussed what happened in their interviews (some were also at the Ariana Grande concert with Martyn), Adam âmade a very clear decision that [those stories] wasnât going on stageâ.
âThose are their personal stories,â he says. âWe never talk about what happened in the arena, we talk about Martynâs life, not his death. Thatâs how we keep his legacy going on.â
Thatâs not to say â#BeMoreMartynâ isnât without its emotional moments.
During one scene, a character recalls the last time he saw Martyn, stating that he feels glad they had danced and laughed at a party. Itâs a sudden bittersweet line, nestled in a script that spends most of its time focused on inspiring raucous laughter.
âThere are moments that are really moving and sad,â Adam admits. âBut whenever we have a scene that is sad, we always make sure that we uplift the audience straight away, and weâll have a mad scene about Eurovision.
âItâs important to have those moments to reflect and allow the friends to say on stage, âI miss Martynâ. But also, we also want this celebration to continue and I think weâve struck the right balance.
âYouâve got to have those moments where you go, âHeâs not here anymoreâ, and weâre remembering him, but that doesnât mean the audience have to leave a crying wreck.â
If, a year on, we need a symbol of how Manchester fought back in the wake of the attack, then #BeMoreMartyn is it.
Joe explains: âThis is a celebration of Martynâs life and thatâs what we want to focus on, and the message we want to get across. It ties in with how Manchester responded.â
âThatâs exactly what Manchester did,â adds Bridget. âIt wasnât focussing on what was going on, it just felt like a coming together and a rebirth of people.
âTaking a minute to look at your own life and your own family and friends. The way all of Martynâs friends reacted [banding together] is the way the city did.â
âThe past couple of days, watching documentaries about what happened⊠For me, a lot of the documentaries have been focussed on what happened in the arena that night,â Adam says. âAnd I think that the response of the city is more important to be talking about.
â[For me] This year has been all about Martyn and heâs touching lives continually.
âOn a personal level, I think thatâs amazing that a year after such a terrible event, my life as been touched by someone in such an important way.â
Following its week-long Manchester run, the play will move to Brighton and a night in London is also booked in for June.
These location changes presented challenges, but Joseph Carter, who plays Mikey, explains that the show will still be âvery accessibleâ for those audiences who didnât know Martyn.
âBack in October it was very much centred around directly Martynâs friends and family,â explains Joseph Carter, who plays Mikey. âBut this time around, itâs about sharing his story to the public and trying to get that right.
âItâs about engaging with people who might know nothing about Martyn and what we can do to make people take a little bit from the story and put it into their own lives, without knowing any of the background,â adds Bridget.
The Manchester run hasnât started when weâre speaking but Adam has already considered what could come next - and heâs allowing himself to think big.
âI think itâs our responsibility to take the play as far as we can,â he says. âMy dream is that, this time next year, weâre in New York.
âI know that sounds like a crazy dream but why not have Martyn Hett on Broadway? All joking aside, that was a city that had their own response to a terrorist attack.
âIâd like to take the play there and for people in New York to reflect on this cityâs response⊠and it would just be fabulous to have Martynâs name in lights on Broadway.
âSo why not dream? And be more Martyn?â
Find out more about #BeMoreMartyn, and book tickets, here.