John Ryan’s DVD recording of the ‘Beyond Prison- Bringing  the outside in’ comedy  project has just won an award from the Scottish Mental Health Arts Film Festival in the Best Short Documentary Category 2011.  Whilst  ITV’s ‘show me the funny’ puts acts into controlled environments with disciplined audiences at night time, John Ryan wrote and performed his show in front of prisoners predominantly serving Life sentences in a women’s Prison. Add to that the fact that the subject matter was about Mental Health and Equality issues and here’s a man that will really SHOW YOU THE FUNNY.  The project was funded by the Home Office via a south London Charity called The Southside Partnership. John carried out research via workshops with various prison inmates to find out their experiences of Mental health and diversity issues within the prison service. The resulting show was filmed by Insidejob productions in conjunction with the inhouse media team at Downview Prison surrey. The project also won a Best of Health Awards 2010 in Mental Health and Well Being for the NHS. The DVD is now being circulated across the prison service for use in discussion groups.

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