All the Beds I Have Slept In Review Bristol Old Vic

Marginalised people with lived experience always tell their stories the best. The sincerity, the authenticity. It connects with the audience. Watching the true stories of unaccompanied minor refugees told by displaced actors who have been through these experiences packs a punch. It chips away at our more privileged lives, making us realise we can all do better by other people. The ones who have fewer rights and almost insurmountable global systemic barriers because of the country they were born into and situations out of their control.

All the Beds I Have Slept In, weaves together these true experiences. It brings together the friendships between refugees. How they form new families. How in what must be the darkest and loneliest times there are moments of kindness from strangers.

These experiences are tied together through the many beds they have slept in along the way. Everyone needs to sleep and where they sleep is their bed.

Arriving in the UK is just the start of another journey, another series of beds, rules and regulations. Even after all that, you might not be allowed to stay. But what could be a really harrowing tale is handled delicately. It finds moments of light, love and humour in places where there is also worry, anger and upset.

The show opens with what happens if you have the misfortune to break your bed. An accident that can have serious implications when you already have few rights.

The story is told through voice, physical theatre and a friendship between two teenage boys. The friendship also represents the inequalities in the system. Two people coming from the same country literally sitting next to each other on the same boat does not mean they experience the same treatment from decision makers or the system they find themselves thrown into.

In places, through the outreach work Phosphoros Theatre does with local charities supporting refugees – such as Borderlands UK – we meet current refugees living in Bristol. They carry an object, a symbol of importance to them. A tea tray which once represented love and family now represents loneliness. Houseplants lovingly tended to now left behind. A trophy prompts memories of children far away.

It’s an incredibly poignant moment. One of those moments that will stay with you. It shows how theatre is an incredibly powerful medium for giving those without power and influence a voice that can be heard.

All the Beds I Have Slept In was a brilliant piece of theatre for giving those who are traditionally without voices the space to raise them. And for those of us who don’t hear them the moment to listen.

Actors: Tewodros Aregawe, Abel Atsede, Talal Hassan, Nas Kamal, Ismael Mohammed, Syed Haleem Najibi

Photos: Al-Hussein Abutaleb

Writer – Dawn Harrison
Director – Esther Dix
Movement Director – Sean Hollands
Producer and Wellbeing – Juliet Styles
Head of Community Engagement and Wellbeing – Kate Duffy-Syedi
Community Engagement Coordinator – Kofi Odoom
Sceneographer – Karl Chaundy
Research and Development and Initial Tour – Goitom Fesshaye, Pavlos Christodoulou, Mohamad Aljasem, Emirjon Hoxhaj, Mohamed Fahmi, Ali Ghaderi, Becca Prentice

For more information about Phosphoros Theatre: https://www.phosphorostheatre.com/

What’s on at Bristol Old Vic: https://bristololdvic.org.uk/

Backstagebristol.com
www.instagram.com/backstagebristol
twitter.com/BristolStage
facebook.com/backstagebristol
YouTube

Bristol Theatre News at Backstage Bristol – contact us through email or social m