The Mouse. (360G-Wellcome-101327_Z_13_Z)

23-minute drama. THE MOUSE is a tender love story concealed within a fierce urban thriller. It dramatises the interface of bipolar disorder, psychiatry and deprivation in the life of a vulnerable teenager. The project is a collaboration between filmmaker Theo Baines, adolescent psychiatrist Dr Simon Lewis (clinical lead, Simmons House NHS residential unit) and cinema story-editor Walter Donohue (Paris Texas, 28 Days Later). The film explores the impact of social and economic deprivatio n in adolescence on young people's first experiences of mental illness and psychiatry, and on their subsequent risk of isolation, unemployment and homelessness in early adulthood. A psychotic young homeless man is sectioned by police in east London and taken to A&E. In a psychiatric assessment, Jacob tells his story: Two weeks earlier he travels to London, leaving his medication to begin again without it. He finds work in a kitchen and meets 15-year-old Ayla. They fascinate each other. Ayla loves the mice she sees under the tracks at tube stations. Jacob devotes himself to getting her one by any means possible - in an increasingly imaginative series of schemes. Unaware of his endeavours but alarmed by his unsettled personality, Ayla ends their short relationship. Heart-broken, unemployed and homeless, Jacobs rapid-cycling symptoms of bipolar disorder and anxiety become increasingly serious, and his quest to catch a mouse ever-more urgent. The story ends in a suspenseful enco unter at Aylas family home. To be offered free online and to Key-Stage 4 PSHE teachers. Promotional campaign will target audience of 15-25-year-olds.