When creating her play, Phoenix Benham never expected her personal diary to be on stage in front of the world. Feature writer Charlotte Cain discovers why her inner torments are now carrying strong messages to the wider world.
This was never meant to leave the confines of her personal diary, let alone be highlighted under the stage lights and be seen by a packed theatre.
You Won’t Help Me has taken on a life of its own and helped so many people.
Phoenix Benham grew up in the theatre, right from being in her nursery theatre group at five years old to being signed as a child actor for small films.
“I sort of grew up in the industry,” she recounts.
So, it was no surprise to anyone when she created a theatre company with her husband Nathan. They started Distorted Rebels in 2022 under a different name.
“We started getting bigger and delving into different projects, so we had a massive rebrand and turned into Distorted Rebels Studios,” she says.
However, whilst the business was booming, Phoenix was battling her own silent demons. She was slowly trying to heal from years of abuse.
Her therapist was aiding her to process her experiences.
“She got me to write down ways I felt and the conversations I had,” she says. “I was very much trying to shrug it off.”
Now she was being asked to let someone else read it.
“She said because you’ve spent so long not being able to talk I want you to share this with a trusted person,” she says.
Phoenix resisted but eventually relented to let her best friend read it.
Every experience she had and every feeling she felt was now being perceived by another.
Her friend sat her down one day and told her to create something – a play, a film, just something – and to use that voice she had rediscovered to create art.
It took a lot of time and deliberation, but she pushed through her doubts and wrote and produced a production based on her first-hand experiences of domestic abuse. You Won’t Help Me was born.
The story focuses on the character Sarah and her relationship with David.
“Sarah is me. I gave her hobbies and a personality, and it makes it easier to perform her,” she says. “It’s a way of distancing myself from that part of me.”
As for the casting of David, with such violent acts occurring in the script, Phoenix knew she wanted to feel safe with her castmates.
The vetting process wasn’t just watching numerous self-tapes of different scenes she had sent out; she wanted to truly know her castmates, to speak to them on the phone to see what kind of people they were, if they would get along.
“I know what I’m looking for, and I know what I need from these people,” she says. “With Callum, who plays David we went for coffee and we clicked straight away.”
“The more we connected backstage the better the chemistry was on stage, and we just felt safer to be vulnerable,” Phoenix says.
You Won’t Help Me follows the relationship between Sarah and David throughout key times in their lives. It explores how the abuse Sarah experiences slowly escalate from manipulation and breaking down her confidence to physical violence.
The production also focuses on the people surrounding Sarah, her friends who notice something is not right but fail to question it. This was important for Phoenix to depict in her production as people need to start asking the hard questions.
“With Sarah, a couple of her friends noticed little things were wrong but they always felt it wasn’t their place to ask, which leads to later events in the play, she says. “It’s always better to ask even if you’re completely wrong, even if it’s completely embarrassing or you don’t think you should ask stuff about that.”
The opening night of You Won’t Help Me didn’t go in the way Phoenix expected, and she felt removed and isolated from it.
“It wasn’t the best experience, with a massive cast falling out, so when we got to the show, I didn’t have that support on stage,” she says. “I didn’t really have a chance to think about how I felt, that was kind of taken away from me.”
After the first theatre run ripped the experience from her hands, the second one was a blessing. Her cast was extremely supportive, and she started to understand what this all meant to people.
She was standing in the theatre bar one night when she was approached by a woman who was inconsolable, managing to tell them about her own experiences at 19.
Nobody else until then knew what had happened to the woman but she’d decided that was going to change – she was going to tell people about her experiences, 46 years after they had happened.
The woman was determined her own girls would never have to experience what she had gone through.
That was when it started to hit Phoenix that this production she had made, that wasn’t even supposed to be seen, was making an impact bigger than she expected.
As well as making an impact on stage, the play is supporting two charities very close to Phoenix’s heart.
“Women’s Aid is actually one of the reasons I’m still here. They were a massive support for me,” she says. “After my last domestic violence relationship, they got me financial aid because I had nothing.”
Women’s Aid provides support and information for women and children in abuse situations and after leaving abusive households.
Another charity You Won’t Help Me supports is the ManKind Initiative, which specialises in helping men to escape domestic abuse.
Although Sarah’s story is depicted on stage, a man could be sat in the audience resonating with the performance and not knowing where to access help.
“I really hate the belief that domestic violence happens to just women, because many men go through it as well,” she says.
With each run of You Won’t Help Me, the strength of the reception grows.
“It’s sort of taken on a world of its own to the point where we only brought it back because we had so much demand,” she explains. “People haven’t stopped asking for me to bring it back since our last run in 2024.”
The production is being made into a feature film next year and will be hitting screens to be seen by even more people.
“We know from the messages we have received that this play has saved over a thousand lives, and I just know it’s going to be able to save so many more.”
Phoenix never could have imagined that a passion project she created to make her voice heard could have made this huge impact.
“I get messages every day from people just telling me how it impacted them and it does feel very surreal that something I have been through is now helping save other people’s lives.”
The company has a fundraiser to fund their feature film next year. You can find more information at https://www.ticketor.com/youwonthelpme/donation?PageId=193142.