WALKING TO JERUSALEM Comes To Rich Mix And Amnesty International In April

In 2017 the award-winning playwright and actor Justin Butcher marshalled a motley crew of marchers on a pilgrimage from London to Jerusalem, calling for equal rights for all in the Holy Land. More than one hundred walkers took part. Nine walked the whole way, through Europe, Turkey, Jordan, and the Holy Land.

Their story - walking journals and travellers' tales of pilgrimage and conquest, monasteries, mountain passes, Bedouin camps and desert wadis, paths of gravel and rock, and one very-well used scarf, are brought to life in WALKING TO JERUSALEM, a playful and inventive blend of theatre and stand-up, performed by Justin Butcher and based on his celebrated book of the same name.

"We walked from London to Jerusalem in 2017, in penance for Britain's act of imperial hubris a hundred years before, which unleashed a century of tragedy and injustice on the Palestinian people. We walked in solidarity and hope, calling for full equal rights for all peoples in the Holy Land. Since then, things have gone from bad to worse." Justin Butcher

Along Roman roads and refugee routes, with occasional outbreaks of blisters, tear gas and desert spirituality, virtuoso storyteller Justin Butcher traces the perils, pratfalls and marvels of the path to Jerusalem. A chronicle of serendipity: happenstances hilarious, infuriating and occasionally numinous or, as pilgrims might say, encounters with the Divine.

That pilgrimage marked three major anniversaries, in a message of penance, solidarity, and hope, in the Palestinian struggle: the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, the fiftieth year of Israel's military occupation of the Palestinian Territories, and the tenth year of the blockade of Gaza.

In February this year Amnesty International published a comprehensive report, Israel's Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity, which set out how massive seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement restrictions, and the denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians are all components of a system which amounts to apartheid under international law.

Playwright, actor, activist and musician Justin Butcher worked with human rights charity Amos Trust to mount the Just Walk to Jerusalem. Walking to Jerusalem, the theatrical retelling, is directed by acclaimed theatre maker Matilda Reith (The Good Times, The Andrea Project, Hotel Room), with a haunting and evocative soundscape by Jack C. Arnold (Wild Rose, War & Peace, Holy Flying Circus, Albatross) and video montage created from live footage along the route, by award-winning artist Damian Hale (Sigur Ros, Chemical Brothers, U2).

WALKING TO JERUSALEM premiered in a critically acclaimed sell-out run at the 2019 Dublin Theatre Festival, coinciding with the UK paperback release and US publication of Justin Butcher's celebrated book of the same name.

Funds raised at these performances will go to support the inspiring work of Amos Trust's partners in Palestine - Al-Ahli Hospital & NECC in Gaza, and Alrowwad Youth Centre for Culture & Arts, Holy Land Trust & Wi'am Conflict Resolution Centre in Bethlehem. Supported by Amos Trust, Hodder Faith, Waverley Learning & Zaytoun CIC.

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