Changing behaviour

Toby Jones on how theatre is being used in Malawi to help stop the spread of Aids

The interior designer charged with decorating the IT suite probably didn’t have theatre in mind. I am staring at the pastel carpeting, Venetian blinds and the useless plug dangling from the overhead projector: we could be anywhere. The sex worker casually hands me her baby and takes to the carpet. As I rock the baby to sleep, I watch the mother and several of her sex co-workers acting out the moment a colleague of theirs declared herself HIV-positive.

We are sitting in the British Council offices in Lilongwe, Malawi, where we have spent the afternoon singing and improvising with these 15 extraordinary women. As they tell their stories, the offices transform into the bottle shops, streets and slums in which they live and work. At one unforgettable moment even the dangling plug is woven into a noose as the mother is driven to suicide.