A new ladder

Mea culpa.  I have been particularly bad at posting regularly recently.  To some extent, this is because I regularly forget to take any photos of the session, and so use that as an excuse to leave it for another week.  But it has to be admitted that progress has been very much stumbling forward recently.  Since the last post, there have been some positive sessions, with a focus on improvisation, but. As in the early days of setting up the group in the Holiday Inn, what seems like a positive step forward simply is a step  back again the following week.  One session before Christmas was the same sort of Christmas lesson I have delivered at this time of year throughout my life.  Which was a pleasant enough affair, but did feel as though we were simply marking time.

The real challenge at present is attracting a cast.  Two of our members who took part in the shows last June have since dropped out, and though they have been replaced – and Arli and Connie, the replacements, are both very strong – but Hamed’s complete script is at least two people bigger, with the new scenes at the end.  And each time we think that we have covered those roles, our hopes are dashed.  At present, we have our hopes centred on two refugees from Yemen, but as they both missed the most recent session…

Which is a little depressing.  However, this week Hamed and I had an enormously positive meeting with Cristina, who seems to run WeRESTART, the arts organisation that oversaw Refugee Week in Brent and Camden last year, and who have provided us with our new meeting space in Wembley, alongside Chiara, her assistant.  It transpired that both had a lot of experience in theatre, and had some intelligent suggestions to make as to possible approaches and collaborators – in terms of music, set design, technical support – which should be able to push the production to a new level.  It was also clear that Cristina had not only read the script, she saw enormous potential within it, which is hugely encouraging; I am so close to both Hamed and the script that I find it difficult to evaluate the piece objectively.  But not only did she make constructive comments during the meeting, she also produced, that evening, a superb summary of the piece, with the intention of raising enough interest to perform the piece at Sheffield’s Migration Matters Festival later this year.

“Snakes and Ladders” is a powerful documentary-style theatre piece based on the true story of Hamed, an Iranian journalist and political activist forced to flee his country in search of safety.

Structured around Hamed’s asylum interview and therapy sessions in the UK, the play moves between present-day questioning and vivid reconstructions of his journey across borders. As Hamed recounts his experiences, the audience is transported to refugee camps in Greece and Bosnia, dangerous “games” of border crossings, encounters with smugglers, police violence, and moments of unexpected kindness. His story intertwines with those of fellow travellers—Ahmad, Mustafa, Ilmar, Antela, and others—each representing different motivations, hopes, and losses within the shared experience of displacement.

The title refers to the cruel unpredictability of the refugee journey: moments of progress and hope are suddenly undone by violence, bureaucracy, or chance, just as in the board game. Through stark contrasts—between the cold bureaucracy of interviews and the human reality of survival—the play exposes how individual lives are reduced to case files, while trauma, grief, and resilience remain unheard.

“Snakes and Ladders” explores themes of human rights, dignity, identity, faith, and belonging. It asks what it means to be “safe” when safety comes at the cost of separation, guilt, and memory. Ultimately, the play challenges audiences to see refugees not as statistics or crises, but as people shaped by courage, contradiction, and hope.

At once intimate and political, the piece offers a moving reflection on migration today and invites the audience to consider a final question: whose story will we listen to next?

The difficulties remain: completing the cast, finding enough rehearsal time, moving the show on with the new technical and design elements…  But we also feel that others are now on our side.