Lights, camera, education! The potentials of forum theatre in a learning disability nursing program

SummaryLearning disability nurse education, with a current emphasis on inclusive practice and a history of listening to the person with the disability, is well placed to take advantage of more ‘experimental’ forms of classroom teaching. In this article we argue for the use of forum theatre as a method of addressing topics from practice within an educational setting. Based on our emergent and exploratory work with students we detail at length the theoretical background that supports such an approach and contextualise the issues with reference to a short piece of drama we have used successfully with different student groups. We feel that the success of this method is due to the involvement of students in directing their own education as well as the inclusion of individuals labelled with learning disability as an integral part of the process.