Making Friends at Good Chance
Good Chance Socials went to Bridge Theatre in London this week to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
The Socials is a group for refugees, asylum seekers and local Londoners to discover London, meet people, make friends and feel welcome to the city. The group go on exciting theatre trips, cultural visits to galleries and enjoy live music.
Some of our group have never been to a theatre or seen a show of this scale before so it was quite an amazing experience. Craig Leo (Head Puppeteer of the production) was amazing and organised a backstage tour! It involved everyone going up on stage and seeing the inner workings of the show - it was truly a magical moment.
Included in our group were a mother and son who had travelled from Hackney to join us. The son had taken Drama GCSE and got the opportunity to meet lead actor Keziah (who played Lucy). He asked her how he could ever get to that level - every time he had tried to be on stage he would shake with nervousness. He said to Keziah: “I couldn’t believe how good it was.”
A family from Peckham came who have recently arrived in the country. The older brother signed up to our first Social and brought his friend along at the last minute. Afterwards, they asked if there were more happening, immediately signing up to come and see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They ended up bringing brothers and friends along, all of whom stayed for the backstage tour after the show, asking questions about the set and how it was built.
We welcomed a young man from Afghanistan to the group. You could tell how much he loved live theatre and stage productions because he was talking about the beautiful costumes and the exciting puppetry and during Act 2 he even joined the ensemble cast in pledging allegiance to Aslan by shouting ‘For Narnia!’
The group gathered outside after the show and the backstage tour and we all said “goodbye for now” and “see you at the next Social!” Someone even said, "Can we have a Social in Manchester?” Watch this space…
