The ‘Making it Personal’ project, led by Dr. Ali Kay (Goriely Group & Centre for Personalised Medicine (CPM)) and Dr. Minna Jeffery (St Anne’s College), utilised theatre to spark conversation around a couple’s experience of a genetic diagnosis in their child and their question, "Could it happen again?".
The team spent several months developing a script with a panel of lived experience experts and healthcare practitioners. A staged reading took place on 17 May 2025 in the MOLT Theatre, St Anne’s College. The performance was filmed by Oxford Digital Media and is available via the CPM website and YouTube channel for use by medical practitioners worldwide.
Audience feedback reflected how powerful and different it felt to learn about research through live performance—many remarked on how emotionally resonant and thought-provoking the experience was.
Reflecting on the project, Dr Ali Kay said:
Theatre offered us a unique platform to ‘set the scene’ on an emotional level, highlighting how individuals process risk and medical information — often in ways that differ significantly from clinical perspectives.
A full review of the project—including insights from the co-production process, audience messages, and workshop outcomes—is currently being prepared for publication.
Watch the performance here:
The script is available here: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f15b81bc-55d0-4e08-8f9d-9f15fb6e8f8d
The Making it Personal project was made possible by a grant from the Public and Community Engagement with Research (PCER) Fund, University of Oxford (Dr. Ali Kay; Dr. Minna Jeffery; Prof. Anne Goriely; Assoc. Prof. Lisa Hinton), with additional support from the Centre for Personalised Medicine.