Immigration Play Forced To Cancel Malta Show Due To Actor Without A Travel Visa
The Pizza Shop Heroes, an autobiographical show performed by a London-based theatre company comprising of refugee and asylum-seeking actors, unfortunately had to be cancelled due to one of the cast members not having a travel visa.
Phosphoros Theatre were invited to Malta to perform today and tomorrow in collaboration with Lost in Migration Conference: Global Strategies and Political Commitments, organised by the President’s Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society and Missing Children Europe. Their aim was to raise awareness about the dangerous situation unaccompanied kids face whilst fleeing persecution in their homeland.
The theatre group consists of four young males who started as asylum-seeking children
The troupe was stopped from boarding the plane at Heathrow airport yesterday evening due to one of its actors (an Afghani asylum-seeker) having forgotten to apply for a travel visa.
He did however have a travel certificate, which was refused by Malta Immigration due to it not being a valid Schengen document to be able to enter the island.
“It is with a heavy heart that we have to announce that the shows have to be cancelled,” a spokesperson for the President’s Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society said. “But Malta’s laws must be respected”.