Soap stars Support Slave at Lowry

Coronation Street actresses Sue Nicholls (Audrey Roberts) and Katy Cavanagh (Julie Carp) will be at The Lowry on Monday 9 August at 1pm to launch Feelgood Theatre Productions’ Slave – A Question Of Freedom, which premières at The Lowry on Tue 23 November. This affecting production is based on the autobiography of Mende Nazer, who was captured from her village in South Sudan and sold into slavery at the age of 12.

Mende Nazer will join Sue and Katy on Monday to discuss the importance of this groundbreaking production.

“I am one of the lucky ones, please use my voice to help others”, Mende Nazer, 2008

Mende Nazer was captured from her Nuba village in south Sudan at the age of 12 (along with around 30 other children during a raid). Mende was enslaved in Khartoum for 6 years after which she was passed to a family in London where she was ‘owned’ by a Sudanese diplomat until helped to freedom in 2000.

Mende fought deportation, aided by Baroness Cox, and is now a British citizen, living and working in London. Her husband is also Nuban, from her village, but now lives in the US. When her Green Card comes through, Mende will join him. So, this may be the last opportunity to get a live interview with her before the production opens.

War correspondent, journalist and acclaimed author Damien Lewis wrote Slave, now an international bestseller, with her. A new Channel 4 film, I Am Slave, has been made, inspired by her story, and received its Bafta screening last month.

Slave – A Question of Freedom is based faithfully on her moving and harrowing story. Under the sensitive direction of Caroline Clegg (Feelgood Theatre Productions), a talented international cast will bring her experiences to life through story telling, music and dance. Mende’s is a story of beauty, strength, bravery and surviving the inhumanity of man.

Caroline read Mende’s story 5 years ago and has been working towards this unique and important production ever since. She and Mende are now good friends, and both Damien Lewis and Mende have given their full support to the dramatisation of the book.

Mende is brave, and grateful for her freedom. Many are not so lucky. She wants to help them, by speaking out against this silent and invisible practice. She believes the way to change minds and attitudes is through education, so she has formed the Mende Nazer Foundation to build a two-classroom school in her former Nuba home.

Profits from the performances will go towards Mende’s Foundation, and the plan is to take the show (after its inaugural one-week run at the Lowry) on to the West End and a national tour.