The real-life counterpart of All the Queen’s Children’s central character, Marcus Hanibal, represented as Samuel and played by Sami Chokri, has been granted ‘leave to remain’ after a long and arduous application process.
The 19 year old Eritrean arrived in the UK on his own when he was just 14, after a year long journey across deserts and seas. The company are delighted for Hanibal, because they all became good friends when he agreed to share his story with them.
This is what one of them had to say after they worked with Hanibal for the first time:
“None of us could imagine anything that he had been through ... It was just so different from anything we had ever experienced. Everyone felt in awe, knowing he had been through so much and had come out the other side, and the same age as us”
Whilst the company celebrate Hanibal’s success story, they are sorry to hear another of the young men they interviewed as part of their research process has been put into a detention centre and is likely to be sent back to Afghanistan, which he says is likely to lead to his persecution as he escaped recruiters of the Taliban.
The company met the teenager when he was in the process of his age dispute. On the second night of All the Queen’s Children’s Edinburgh previews in Reading, Rosanna found out what had happened:
“When you think about what he has lived through, in a war-torn place, of course he will seem old. We thought he was coming to see the play tonight, we thanked him in the programme but he won’t know that now.”
Now, the reality of his situation reminds the young people of the importance of performing All the Queen’s Children in Edinburgh, where they hope to attract refugee audiences and entertain those who don’t know anything about the plight of unaccompanied refugee minors in the UK.
