ACTRESS and writer Gemma Head draws on personal experience for her new play, Dial, A Call Centre In Crisis.

On tour in York tonight at the Theatre Royal, this one-woman show depicts the stressed-out life of company-proud Carol Dowd, recently promoted head of a team at Soulsave Direct, where she lives and breathes the recycled air at the helpline service for “nobodies in need”.

“I came to do an MA in theatre studies at Leeds University in 2003 and I’ve been here ever since, working as a jobbing actress and part-time in a call centre, which gave me the idea for the play – and I still work there when times are tough,” says Gemma.

She was struck by the theatrical possibilities of call centres. “I work on a massive floor, sectioned off into pods, and as soon as I entered that environment, I thought it would make a brilliant setting because all the characters of the world are there,” says Gemma.

The focus in Dial falls on only one character, however, and Carol’s journey is a downward spiral, an ironic twist when her job is to help those with problems.

“I didn’t want it to be just this bright, sparky comedy, so I try to make points about society around the comedy, and without giving it away, it ends quite tragically, and when it veers into a darker direction, it’s unnerving for the audience,” says Gemma.

“By the end, the world of the play is in tatters, and Carol is a weeping mess.”

While Dial has bawdy moments, it is essentially a black comedy with a clash between people ringing up with their woes and a company wishing to make money out of them. “The fact that we have to communicate with machines to do all our transactions frustrates me and I want to prod people to ask where we’re going with this as it’s dehumanising us,” says Gemma.

Whiteface Theatre presents Dial, A Call Centre In Crisis, in The Studio, York Theatre Royal, tonight and tomorrow, 7.45pm. Box office: 01904 623568.