THE crowd-funding campaign to raise £6,000 to stage York poet Don Walls's play The Beggars Of York at York Theatre Royal has gathered £1,000 in five days but needs more help and quickly.

Directed by Joshua Goodman and presented by Joshua's company Tiny Window, the veteran York poet's verse play addresses the theme of homelessness and the mental health crisis in York and was written in response to the experiences of Don's son, Peter.

Peter Walls died four years ago. He had schizophrenia and struggled with addiction; he spent 30 years busking poems on the streets of York and was regularly arrested for begging. "He always maintained that he was simply reciting poetry, for which people spontaneously offered small change," says Don. "The police saw it differently."

Unlike his many homeless friends and associates, however, Peter had a home to sleep in every night: the home of his father. "He lived with me here, but he spent every day out on the streets of York," says Don.

"He couldn’t get a job. People didn’t realise how his mental illnesses affected him, so to ordinary people he just looked like a down-and-out."

Don, 86, is a regularly published poet and has bipolar disorder. His play chronicles Peter’s experiences and those of his associates on the streets, and as well as depicting the horrors and humours of living rough, it launches a defiant attack on the police and challenges us all to fight for better integration of social and care services.

"Written in Don’s signature style of verse, it’s part Greek tragedy, part eulogy, part performance poetry," says Joshua, who picked up the play last year and vowed to find a platform for the text.

"We obviously had to do it in York. The issues are certainly universal, but it’s got a very home-grown feel. I was thrilled when the folk at York Theatre Royal’s TakeOver Festival got involved. They've been really supportive in helping me get the work out there, including offering a performance space for three shows in July."

York Press:

Don Walls: "Peter spent every day out on the streets of York"

Although the TakeOver Festival is supporting the project in kind, the festival organisers are unable to back the project financially in its entirety, as artistic director Lizzy Whynes explains: “This is such an important piece, but we don’t have the budget to commission it.

"We're giving Joshua and his team free rehearsal space, a free performance space and lots of in-kind marketing help, but they need to raise the cash to actually fund the production."

Consequently, Joshua’s company has launched the crowdfunding campaign to raise £6,000 in only a few weeks. “This is still a shoestring, low-budget production, but these few thousand quid will mean the difference between a low-budget/mates-rates production and exploitative, poor quality work. It’s essential," stresses Joshua, a former co-artistic director of Upstage Centre Youth Theatre in York.

"Interest was high to begin with, raising just over £1,000 in the first five days of the campaign, but donations have waned and the deadline is looming. Now we hope local businesses will sponsor the project as well as individuals."

One such business owner, Terry Brett of Pyramid Gallery, in Stonegate, has pledged already. "I have known Don and enjoyed his poetry for many years," he says. "I remember his son Peter as a very likeable street entertainer with an ability to bring T S Eliot's cat poems to life. He could throw his voice like an actor and become a cat.

"So I've offered to try and help raise the money to get this play produced. This is a contemporary grassroots play that raises important issues about mental illness and the homeless. It needs to be seen and we have a great opportunity to see that it gets on to the stage."

More information about the project and how you can donate can be found at crowdfunder.co.uk/beggars. The campaign must end on May 26.