It’s early evening in Oldham town centre and a group of teenagers can be found loitering outside the Coliseum. In good spirits and chatting amongst themselves, they’re shepherded through the ‘Coli’ doors and carefully guided past the merch stand and box office towards the stalls.
“Miss, you’re shouting,” says a lad from one of the school groups, before his teacher darts him a look, and with her eyes pleads with him to take his seat. “I’m not shouting,” she says in a hushed voice before shushing the rest of the group and breathing a sigh of relief as they finally comply.
They’re here to see theatre company ThickSkin’s production, ‘How Not To Drown’, a child asylum seeker’s harrowing true story of coming to the UK and his troubling experience with the British care system. Timely given the current political situation, it is also the last play to be performed on Oldham Coliseum’s stage.
