Great Western Coffee Shop

^Gripping^ theatre comes to Bristol Temple Meads

Bristol Temple Meads Station is to play host to a very special theatre production on Monday 25 November, to mark the 75th anniversary of the arrival of child evacuees from Europe.

Seventy-five years on from the first Kindertransport in Britain, the concourse and platform of Bristol Temple Meads station will burst into life with Suitcase 1938, an original theatre piece ^ fusing a site-specific promenade performance with live music to mark those arrivals.

First Great Western^s Station Manager for Bristol Temple Meads Glyn Beck said: ^At First Great Western we are committed to supporting the communities we serve and are delighted to be able to offer Bristol Temple Meads as a venue for this gripping theatre production. Over 27,000 passengers a day pass through the station, supported by our helpful and friendly staff. It is wonderful to be able to provide our customers with the opportunity to experience some of what those children did in 1938 on arrival in the UK.^

Suitcase 1938 was specially devised from original source material by director Ros Merkin and produced by Jane Merkin. The two are daughters of Johanna who came from Vienna on the Kindertransport in December 1938. Suitcase is a professional production devised to reflect and to commemorate the stories of those who were there.

The play takes small groups of the audience on a journey across and through the station, recreating the scenes of bewildered Kindertransport children, the waiting foster parents, transport organisers and bemused railway workers and bystanders.

There will be three performances (10.30, 13.00 and 19.30) and each performance will last approximately an hour. The audience will not be seated and will move around the station. Tickets are free but must be booked in advance through our website www.suitcase1938.org or by calling 07551 050875.

On 2 December 1938, the first unaccompanied child refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe arrived in Britain, at the start of what became known as the Kindertransport. Over a period of 18 months more than 9,500 children were saved from almost certain death. Very few ever saw their parents or extended families again.