Free For All

Chelmsford Cathedral Performance

Friday evening at 6 30pm we put on our second performance of Free For All at Chelmsford Cathedral. Around 250 came along and filled the Cathedral to capacity. The performace was well recieved and with almost 200 children taking part it was packed to the rafters literally. We had a great team of volunteers led by Chuli Scarfe from CMS, who helped to both distribute and collect all the costumes off every child. After the performance many people came up to us individually and were genuinely shocked by the Slave Trade had no idea that Britain had been involved in it. We have also had alot of media coverage this week from both local newspapers and radio aswell as radio four for an educational programme later this month. I got no time to take any pictures unfortunately but others did so I will link to them when they are up. Next week Free For All move on to Gloucester Cathedral.

Chelmsford Cathedral Week

Free For All is in Chelmsford Cathedral this week and it is a big contrast from working in Westminster Abbey. The Cathedral is alot smaller and so it has a more intimate and dare I say theatre feel to it. We have been working with around 50 young people from various schools each day and we are enjoying the luxary of having 4 days to work towards the performance. This is our preferred way of working and most of the weeks over the year will be like this. On each day we focus on a different player in the slave trade. Monday was England, yesterday was West Africa, today was the Cairibbean and tomorrow the children will represent the freed slaves from Nova Scotia. It is very interesting to look at the story through the eyes of these different groups and get into their skin as it were. We have also had alot more time to unpack the story and history and to challenge the young people on what they have actually learnt. Chelmsford will perform an extract from the play at a special memorial service on 25th March using a group from this weeks work. We have one more day till we perform with a cast of 200 children so I am sure there will be more to add. Watch this space...

Free For All is in Chelmsford Cathedral this week and it is a big contrast from working in Westminster Abbey. The Cathedral is alot smaller and so it has a more intimate and dare I say theatre feel to it. We have been working with around 50 young people from various schools each day and we are enjoying the luxary of having 4 days to work towards the performance. This is our preferred way of working and most of the weeks over the year will be like this. On each day we focus on a different player in the slave trade. Monday was England, yesterday was West Africa, today was the Cairibbean and tomorrow the children will represent the freed slaves from Nova Scotia. It is very interesting to look at the story through the eyes of these different groups and get into their skin as it were. We have also had alot more time to unpack the story and history and to challenge the young people on what they have actually learnt. Chelmsford will perform an extract from the play at a special memorial service on 25th March using a group from this weeks work. We have one more day till we perform with a cast of 200 children so I am sure there will be more to add. Watch this space...