The Likes of Us - Abbey Musical Society

A MUSICAL which tells the story of Dr Barnardo is being performed in Barrow for the very first time later this month.

Abbey Musical Society will be putting on a run of ‘The Likes of Us’ at Forum 28.

Along side the regular members of the society the show also features talented local youngsters playing the part of impoverished orphans in nineteenth century London.

Director Colin Smith explained the story of the show, he said “At one point there were 18,000 homeless orphans in London when Barnardo arrived there in 1865. They all moved into the area because of the Industrial Revolution.

“A lot of families had come into the cities to work and there was huge poverty. They were living in shacks and often families died or they just abandoned the kids because they couldn’t afford them.

“At the start of the show, Barnardo arrives in London on his way to China to be a missionary. When he gets to London he’s horrified to discover all the homeless children. He decides that his calling is to do something about that rather than go to China.

“Barnardo was also equally appalled by the gin palaces and drunkenness and debauchery of London and how nobody was looking after the children and the families – it was against all of his Christian beliefs. So he vowed to close down the gin palaces and inevitably that put him on a collision course.

“The locals weren’t very keen on Barnardo coming in and buying up the gin palaces but that’s what he managed to do. He got some powerful politicians on his side and he was excellent at raising money so he bought the gin palace, closed it down and opened a children’s home in it’s place.”

The musical was the first show written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice when they were in their 20's at university. It was never performed professionally. Colin said “Two years ago they released it for amateurs. It was performed in London with Stephen Fry as the narrator to launch it. We are the first society in this region to put it on.

“We knew it was a good, rollicking, exciting show with a good story and lovely tunes so we got it as quickly as we could.”

The Likes of Us features local children and some of them have never performed on stage before. Colin said “We auditioned the children last November and from about 50, we narrowed it down to 14.

“We’ve now got a range of talented youngsters from around the area aged from five to 14 to play their parts in the show. For one or two of them, it’s their very first time on stage, they’ve never done anything like it before. Some have done things at school and one or two have done things with dance schools or youth societies so it’s a real mixture.

“They’re learning the story of Barnardo and what happened to the children in that age, and that’s partly the difficulty they’re having with the performance – they can’t imagine children being in such squalor and they’re all still a bit too polite and clean, but once the make up goes on I’m sure they’ll get into the spirit of it.

“People who come to see the show can expect lively dance numbers, risqué humour and also pathos. There will be tunes the audience recognise but not songs they will know. That’s because Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice later used some of the tunes for other shows – there are tunes people will recognise from Evita or from Jesus Christ Superstar because they recycled them.

“We have to pay royalties to be able to perform the show and ten per cent of those royalties are donated to the Dr Barnardos charity. Every ticket bought will mean money goes to the charity.”

The show runs at Forum 28 from March 22-27, starting at 7.30pm. Tickets are available from the box office on 820000