Actor Toby Jones speaks out in support of asylum seekers

The former Abingdon School pupil, known for his character actor roles on stage and screen, is taking part in a 24-hour “Shakespeare marathon” to fundraise for Compass Collective, a charity that supports the integration of young refugees in the UK through the arts.

The actor, who has been a trustee of the charity since 2020, will join more than 80 other players – including Robert Glenister, Sylvestra Le Touzel and Owen Teale, as well as young refugee actors – for the production, which takes place at Scrum Studios in Hammersmith, west London, on June 21.

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“You’d have to be inhuman to not respond to children who find themselves as refugees, because through no fault of their own, they’re exposed to forces beyond their comprehension, forces which are potentially extremely dangerous and life threatening,” Mr Jones said in an interview with the Guardian.

“I went to the Calais Jungle with Good Chance theatre and Letters Live a few years ago and performed there. Being shown around the camp had a profound impact on me. Just the vulnerability of the young people, and their yearning for a better life. No one crosses the world and puts themselves in such extreme danger without having a very good cause.”

The 57-year-old, who has appeared in Harry Potter, Detectorists, the Hunger Games, and most recently Mr Bates vs the Post Office, paid tribute to the Compass Collective’s work to help mould people “who can thrive in the societies in which they find themselves”.

“The issue (of refugees) is often treated with such binary attitudes, the situation is caricatured and misrepresented,” he said.

“But whatever anyone thinks, we have unaccompanied young people, at the start of their lives, who need support.

“We talk about boats. We don’t talk about people any more, because that’s harder to talk about.

"But often these things aren’t actually boats, they’re inflatables that barely survive afloat. And they’re full of individuals with the same hopes, dreams and ambitions as the rest of us.”

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Compass Collective supports about 500 young people aged 14-26, 70 per cent of whom are unaccompanied minors. The charity has condemned the Rwanda deportation bill, which it said “represents a setback in our collective journey towards a more compassionate world”.

Asked about the Rwanda scheme, Mr Jones said it was “utterly extraordinary in this day and age that a project like that seems like a viable proposition”.

He added: “But Rwanda is just the latest in a long line of challenges that these people have to face just to survive.”

Compass expects to get through 23 Shakespeare plays in three simultaneous table reads during the marathon, the charity’s co-founder Leah Gayer said.

She added: “The main roles for each play will be cast in advance, with others being spontaneously cast from the table as they’re performed. We’ll be kicking off with Romeo and Juliet. As the evening draws we will perform A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As the clock strikes midnight, we will enter the darker mind of Macbeth, Hamlet and Richard III.”

They will also feature plays such as The Tempest with a focus on “home”, this year’s theme of Refugee Week, which runs from June 17-23.

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About the author 

Andy is the Trade and Tourism reporter for the Oxford Mail and you can sign up to his newsletters for free here. 

He joined the team more than 20 years ago and he covers community news across Oxfordshire.

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