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A woman of 20 is admitted to the infamous lunatic asylum, Bedlam. Doctor John Monroe, the chief physician, a man of great standing, gives her a cursory examination and orders her treatment. She is stripped bare, leeches are applied to her arms and she is slashed to allow the blood out. She is forced to drink vile purges to make her vomit and her head is shaved, before she is placed in a cold bath.

Finally she is led to her bed where she is to sleep on straw under an open window with no glass. She has no pillow, no blanket. Men are free to walk around the asylum and enter her cell.
I have made up the girl — her name, her background, her particular story. But the rest of my new play, Bedlam, is based on fact, and I found the evidence in the 18th-century records of the Bethlem Royal Hospital.

There was worse to come for the new inmates. Each Sunday, London's society would gather at the gates in Moorfields and pay a penny to enter to view the "lunaticks". The idea was that the visitors would be encouraged to pity the patients and act charitably towards them. They would also be given their moral lesson: if they did not curb their own urges, they too might end up in Bedlam.

The reality, however, was something completely different. London was in the midst of the gin epidemic — the poor drank from dawn till dawn, and one in every five houses in Holborn sold gin. Flavourings were added, like with today's alcopops, to make it more palatable, and it was fed to babies and drunk by children. Bedlam open days became anarchic. Visitors were free to mix with the patients, and they brought in alcohol, and taunted the patients to get a reaction. My young girl would have been poked with sticks, and provoked into angry responses in order to entertain. It isn't hard to draw the parallel between Bedlam and the worst excesses of reality television.

Doctor Monroe, a real historic figure, was the son of the previous chief physician, and his own son and grandson would go on to become the chief
physicians, creating a family monopoly which would lead to the stifling of progress and the continuation of such gross injustices and cruelties.

In the course of researching for the play, I went to the modern incarnation of the Bethlem Royal Hospital, which now stands in Beckenham, Kent. It
moved there from Moorfields, via the building that now houses the Imperial War Museum. The hospital still functions and covers south London, as well as admitting specialist patients from the rest of the UK.

It is a world leader in mental health research and also has fantastic and unsung archives and a museum. I was allowed to see John Monroe's original casebook, and to read the record books of admittances and discharges, as well as view the cuffs and chains used to restrain patients.

All the records are haunted by people. Every photograph and medical history unfolds and engages the imagination as you re-imagine their experiences. A young woman who bankrupted herself through speculation on the exchange market, then became violent. Another young woman who, after the birth of her baby, became convinced her baby was dead, she was dead, and that everyone around her was dying. A young single man who, like his father, heard voices and refused to speak or eat.

The museum also has a world-class collection of psychiatric art, including work by Richard Dadd, who killed his father and became a model for one of my characters in the play. They also have a huge range of work by Louis Wain, who became famous for his paintings of cats dressed as people, in school rooms and street scenes. There are some beautiful 20th-century paintings by Cynthia Pell and some observations of obsessive hand washing by Olivia Gillow.

Visiting the museum is fascinating and stimulating, but also troubling, as you realise the vast history of Bedlam, and the extent of the untold stories. It is hard to imagine the effect of the brutal treatments of the 18th century on the most vulnerable.

I wanted my play to be full of energy and humour yet I also wanted to treat the patients with respect, and honour the seriousness of their conditions and the effects of treatment. I met one of the psychiatrists, Dr Tim McInerny, who took me onto the wards to meet some current patients and staff.