Pericles for autistic people & refugee families

"Everyone told me not to do this production. Theatre producers told me that no-one would come and that I should stick to ‘popular titles’ whilst friends advised me that it was unadaptable. I have never been so happy to ignore all advice and stick to my instincts. I created the show in 2019 in Sweden and later that year we performed it on tour in Europe in Polish and Romanian. The show has a range of sensory games and musical content that reflects the knowledge and experience of autism I have accumulated over the last two decades. There are games of sadness and grief in contrast to tangos and songs of fishermen. Toward the end of the show whilst in the throes of the play’s blissful reunion we sing each of the autistic participant’s names in celebration of their lives. The production paired with our mainstage Pericles and the same company of actors performed them both together on the same day at the Craiova International Shakespeare Festival, May 2022. We then drove from Craiova, crossing the Danube to Sofia Bulgaria to perform our Pericles with Ukrainian refugees in response to the war. We have been returning to these families ever since. These performances led to our Double Pericles tour in 2023 which took us across UK, Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia, playing international Shakespeare festivals, tiny refugee centres and special schools in Tower Hamlets. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust opened Hall’s Croft for us and we performed for the refugee families of Stratford upon Avon. So many people told me not to make a production of Pericles because no-one would want to see it. The music of the spheres told me otherwise. So many theatres turned us down even when we had funding to tour, saying they would rather keep their theatres dark. But me, Joshua Welch and Natasha Haward booked a tour anyway and it's been unforgettable."