Lewisham: CJ Meets Her Match

Raising the Roof 6: Summer 2026

Our Lewisham group met online every week for ten weeks from June 2026. It was a brand new group, and from the very first session people were sharing memories, finding common ground and, in one case, bringing a friend along the following week. One theme surfaced almost straight away: freedom. Participants talked about leaving care and the complicated business of gaining independence, from agency and possibility to uncertainty and having to navigate adulthood without the safety nets many others take for granted. From there the group built characters and stories using techniques like The Onion, where a memory or event sits at the centre and characters and relationships grow outwards from it. The work is inspired by lived experience, but fiction protects the privacy of the real stories underneath.

Over ten weeks the group created an entire fictional world, full of characters who don't fit neatly into heroes or villains: Callie, threatened by her landlord CJ, and Ryan, who has to decide whether to take her in; two gangsters, Apple and Samsung, trying to warn a mother that her daughter is in danger without giving away their own part in it.

After ten weeks online, the group met in person for the first time for a weekend of rehearsals at the George Wood Theatre, Goldsmiths, University of London, in New Cross, on 8 and 9 August 2026, performing for invited guests on the Sunday. The performance was built through improvisation and close listening rather than a fixed script, with scenes of compassion, conflict and reconciliation, and it belonged to the whole ensemble.