On Sunday 25 June, Shakespeare’s Globe will host ‘Moving Stories’ in the candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in support of UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. The event will include sketches, short plays and songs examining the experiences of refugees, and responses to the crisis. All profits from the event will be donated to the UNHCR to help towards providing support and assistance to refugees affected by the war in Ukraine. Public booking begins at 10am on Wednesday 24 May.
A company of actors including Simon Russell Beale (The Lehman Trilogy, Broadway; Henry IV, Part I and Part II (The Hollow Crown), BBC2), David Morrissey (The Walking Dead, AMC; Sherwood, BBC), Rakie Ayola (Alex Rider, Eleventh Hour Films / Sony Pictures Television; Noughts + Crosses, Mammoth Screen / Participant / Roc Nation), Omar Baroud (Cabaret, Playhouse Theatre; Wedding Season, Disney+), Bob Barrett (Holby City, BBC One; Casualty, BBC), Jonathan Broadbent (The Comedy of Errors, Royal Shakespeare Company; As You Like It, HBO Films / Picturehouse / BBC Films), Gabrielle Brooks (Once On This Island, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre; Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical, West End;), Ray Fearon (Coronation Street, ITV; Fleabag, BBC3), Caroline Sheen (Les Misérables, Universal Pictures; Doctors, BBC One), Yasmin Taheri (Murder in Provence, Monumental Television Ltd.; Ladhood, BBC) and Matthew Woodyatt (Fiddler on the Roof, Chichester Festival Theatre; One Man, Two Guvnors, West End, UK & International tour) – with more to be announced soon – perform new work written and donated by some of British Theatre’s leading playwrights and artists including Michael Morpurgo (War Horse, Kay & Ward; Private Peaceful, HarperCollins), Richard Bean (Jack Absolute Flies Again and One Man, Two Guvnors, National Theatre), Stephanie Dale (Losing Paradise, BBC Wales; Giants on the Hill, Centric Theatre), Staten Cousins-Roe (This Way Out; A Serial Killer’s Guide to Life, Arrow Films), David Edgar (Nicholas Nickleby, RSC and Broadway; Pentecost, RSC and Young Vic), Phil Porter (The Lavender Hill Mob, Everyman Theatre and UK tour; The Miser, West End), Alexander Rudd (Unknown, Warner Brothers; Lost, ABC), and Jenifer Toksvig (Christmas at the (Snow) Globe, Shakespeare’s Globe; Terry Pratchett’s Mort the Musical, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre). The event will be directed by Robin Belfield (Twelfth Night, The RSC, First Encounters tour; Red Velvet, Richard Burton Theatre Company, RWCMD).
Originally curated in response to the Syrian refugee crisis, ‘Moving Stories’ was first performed at the National Theatre in 2016, and has since visited Theatre Royal Haymarket, St Paul’s Cathedral, and the Palace of Westminster.
UNHCR is a global organization dedicated to saving lives, protecting rights, and building a better future for people forced to flee their homes because of conflict and persecution. It leads international action to protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people.
