The cast and crew of the forthcoming play Stuart: A Life Backwards are to stage a ‘sponsored sleepout’ this weekend in order to raise awareness of homelessness in Cambridge.

The group will sleep rough near Mill Lane lecture theatre from Saturday night through to Sunday morning.

They will also be raising money for Jimmy’s Night Shelter, an emergency shelter in Cambridge, and are working with Wintercomfort, a support centre for the homeless and those at risk of homelessness. The team is hoping to raise £1,000 through donations.

The play is an adaptation of a book by Alexander Masters, an alumnus of St Edmund’s College. It tells the life story of his friend Stuart Shorter, a ‘chaotic homeless’ who lived in Cambridge. The adaptation itself was penned by Pembroke graduate Jack Thorne.

Speaking to Varsity, producer of the show Tom Bevan said: “We wanted to do something that would raise a load of awareness and money for Jimmy’s and we are all incredibly excited.”

“One aspect of being homeless is sometimes sleeping rough – others live in hostels and attend day centres – and we wanted to experience, even if incredibly briefly, a number of different places people live in the city.

Investigating homelessness in Cambridge

“I am hoping that the whole cast and crew will learn just how incredibly scary and cold sleeping rough really is and wake up empowered and angry to help change a system which creates and scapegoats so many homeless people.”

In preparation for the play, the cast met with guests at Jimmy’s, seeking their guidance on characterisation and publicity for the show. Bevan said: “We really wanted to involve local homeless people right from the beginning of the project – designing our publicity images and meeting our cast and crew – to the very end when we will perform the show at Jimmy’s Hostel and invite staff and guests along to the post-show talk on opening night!”

He added: “Meeting people at the hostels has had a huge effect on how we as a cast and crew have thought about homelessness. The complicated, frustrating, sad, inspiring, traumatic stories behind every person who we lazily label as ‘homeless’ are remarkable...  Like Alexander in the play, we have had our preconceptions smashed and have been reminded that what we value as middle class students is so often hollow and comes with gross levels of privilege.”

Jimmy’s is named in memory of Jim Dilley, a man who died of lung cancer in 1995 after spending much of his life sleeping rough in the Cambridge region.

It offers emergency accommodation as well as a range of other services, including a controlled drinking project on Newmarket Road, supported housing, and budgeting advice for those at risk or renewed risk of homelessness.

Cambridge City Council has recently stepped up efforts to tackle rough sleeping, but has been criticised for stigmatising the homeless by publicising advice not to give money to beggars.

Between 2015 and 2016, it was estimated that the number of people in Cambridge sleeping rough was 152. The number of households without permanent accommodation was estimated to be 418, which represented almost a tripling of the number from 2011-12.

Stuart: A Life Backwards will run at the Corpus Playroom from the 31st of January to the 4th of February at 7 p.m. Attendees will be able to donate to Jimmy’s and Wintercomfort at the door.