How you can help
Any donation you feel able to make will help not only with my travel expenses, but with further filming. Whatever you feel you can give will be received with great gratitude and you will, of course, be credited.
A rough calculation of the costs of travel and filming
Hotel in Kyiv: £256-300
Train fares: variable, somewhere between £80-200.
Return air fare to Warsaw: approx £300
Airbnb in Warsaw approx £60
Overnight stay in Prezmysl c £60 per night
Return flight to Frankfurt to record refugees: approx £400
Filming costs approx £1000 a day (350£ each to director and camera operator, 350£ split between drivers and sound person)
Further filming in London/cost ?
Editing/cost ?
What 2000 pounds will buy…a day’s filming, plus travel costs.
What 5000 will buy..several days filming, editing and further filming in the UK.
What 10.000 will buy…lack of anxiety! A professional result!
Please be assured that anything you give will be used properly and with care. And if you can’t go yourself to this extraordinary country, you’ll be making an enormous contribution to a documentary focused on cross-cultural bonds, driven by love of freedom, at a time when war is raging.
Any donation you feel able to make will help not only with my travel expenses, but with further filming. And most importantly, it will help me take the play, Pussycat in Memory of Darkness, to any theatre that will have me. This little play tells the story of the people of Ukraine. I want to keep touring it for as long as the war goes on. Whatever you feel you can give will be received with great gratitude and you will, of course, be credited.
December 2022/an extraordinary donor
My first trip to Ukraine was funded largely through the generosity of a single donor. Her wonderful generosity paid for my travel from London to Ukraine and back, my hotel stay and the filming that I was able to do while I was there. It was an act of true friendship and support.
August 2023. ProEnglish Theatre and Les Korbas
This time I'm going with two plays. I've been invited by the ProEnglish Theatre, who organised the Ukraine end of the trip in December '22. I performed both at the ProEnglish and at Les Korbas, situated just off Maidan Square, the heart of the massive demonstrations in 2014 where the government sanctioned the murder of so many protesters.
August journey, long and arduous. Soldiers on guard
I'll be flying to Warsaw and then driving 500 km to the border town, Prezmysl, where I board the train for the twelve hour trip to Kyiv. I'll be staying in Kyiv for about eight days, in a small hotel behind a government building, meaning there's uninterrupted electricity, a luxury not afforded to most people in Kyiv, where power is frequently cut off. Entry to the hotel requires a chit authorising your passage through the heavily guarded precincts. Soldiers are on constant guard.
December '22 documentary filming. Testimonies
So far, we have eight minutes of film, which I'm planning to expand by interviews with refugees, now safely out of the country in Germany. I'll also run a narrative under the film itself, as well as filming interactions between the audiences and actors and - if possible - making visits to towns such Bucha, where I was before.
Return to Ukraine. The bravery of its citizens
I'm going back to Ukraine not only because I was asked, but because I know how much the solidarity and presence of western Europeans means. The war's gone on for 18 months, people are beginning to tire of it here - it's no longer front page news. But in Ukraine, thousands of people are dying on the battlefield, while millions of others have lost their homes and been forced to flee. The people I know there are trying to keep their spirits up - they're going to the theatre, the cinema, if they can - and they show enormous courage on a daily basis. They struggle to retain a sense of normality and to stay rooted in the present.