Since 2011, the Legion has run Bravo 22 – a recovery-through-the-arts programme for the Armed Forces community. We caught up with the project's director at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle.
Over several months, a group of wounded, injured and sick Service and ex-Service personnel were working together toward what would be the experience of a lifetime - taking to the stage at Newcastle’s Theatre Royal in a play based on their real-life experiences.
The arts expand people’s horizons, helping them to look out from within themselves.Chris Connel, Bravo 22 Director
"I’m a big believer that the arts are important in any walk of life,” explained the show’s director, Chris Connel.
“They expand people’s horizons, helping them to look out from within themselves – because when people are isolated, they tend to look inwards.”
Chris, who is an actor by trade and has starred in the TV shows Emmerdale
and Heartbeat, adds that he was very keen to get on board with the project.
On Working with Bravo 22
“One of the real bonuses for me is to see the transformation of people from when they arrive on day one. It’s not about putting on the world’s best play. It’s about the process and everybody getting involved and taking away from it what they want to take away from it."
The new play, Wor Stories, follows Bravo 22’s hugely successful theatre and art projects that have run over the past five years.
Its debut, The Two Worlds of Charlie F, received standing ovations throughout its West End run in 2012 and went on to tour the UK and North America.
The first production was followed by regional theatre projects in Buckinghamshire and Plymouth, with the company also running its debut art programme in Brighton earlier this year.
“Back in 2011, the producer Alice Driver approached the Legion about utilising theatre as a recovery tool,” says Paul Flood, the Legion’s Head of Outsourcing Services.
“Off the back of the first production’s success, we decided to create a legacy – so that now there’s a body of more than 200 Bravo 22 alumni from the Armed Forces community, with more projects planned for next year.”
