Free For All Manchester

After a week of travelling around schools in the Manchester area, yesterday we came together for a full rehearsal in the cathedral with 180 children followed by an afternoon performance to a full audience in the nave. Working in St Mary's Cathedral was extra special as the place where abolitionist Thomas Clarkson started his campaign against the slave trade and telling children that Manchester led the working class demonstrations against sugar gave them a greater sense of responsibility. Highlights of the day was a solid performance by the girl playing Susanna and the general work ethic of all the children who concentrated brilliantly throughout. For Lloyd Notice (Debget) it was his last performance as he will now be taking the role of Mufasa in The Lion King in the west end and we wish him all the best in that. Working in Manchester has been great as they had an awareness of the slave trade and their role in it. The cathedral had it's own set all free exhibition on show. We will also be part of a programme going out on Grenada TV, which was filmed during our performance with children and actors alike being interviewed, so we will hope to put that up on the multimedia page of our Free For All website in due course. Thanks to Manchester Cathedral, all the schools and especially Pam (education officer) for all her hard work. Please feel free to leave a comment if you were at any of the schools or at the performance on Friday. Also check out the Manchester Cathedral photo album.