This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:03] John Schwab: Hi, John Schwab here, and welcome to a very special episode of Welcome to the Rock, a series dedicated to the success story that is the hit musical Come From Away.

[0:18] John Schwab: Rarely have we had the opportunity to take you on a real deep dive into a show like we have with this series, bringing you not only behind the curtain, but beneath the skin of the show, talking to the real life people that inspire the musical as well as the creatives and the cast.

[0:36] John Schwab: If you didn't know, Come From Away tells the story of how the inhabitants of a small rural community on a Canadian island came to be involved in a musical that transformed one of the most tragic days in human history into one of the biggest shows in modern times.

[0:52] John Schwab: Now the Come From Away team didn't want to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001, without sitting down with the current West End Company and really drilling down into their personal experiences of that day.

[1:07] John Schwab: And in this episode, you'll meet London cast members Alice Fearn, Harry Morrison, Gemma Knight Jones, Kate Graham, Sam Oladeinde, and Jonathan Andrew Hume.

[1:20] John Schwab: Welcome to our September 11th commemorative episode of Welcome to the Rock.

[1:20] John Schwab: Welcome to the Rock.

[1:35] John Schwab: Today, we're talking to a handful of cast members of the West End Company of Come From Away.

[1:41] John Schwab: They sat down around a table to discuss how the events of September 11, 2001 changed their lives, and how they changed even further when they landed a role in this beloved musical.

[1:52] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Hi, everybody.

[1:59] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Hi Donna! So we are in a place where it's it's we've just had the 20th anniversary of September 11th. And uh I think it's kind of poignant that we sit down and talk about those times and how we how we felt at the time, what kind of impact it had on our lives, um, and also the fact that we're in this fantastic show, which is based around the events afterwards and what that means to us.

[2:30] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And we just had our twenty, you know, we had our anniversary concert, our anniversary performance on the case. It's kind of important to talk about it as well, I think, because if you sort of let it go by, it I mean, the amazing thing that our producer said when he came on the day um is is you know, we we don't want to like sort of we can't celebrate it, it's not a celebration, but the end of the day, the show wouldn't exist if it wasn't for September the 11th, yeah, um 2001. So you have to acknowledge it is the most important thing.

[3:01] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Um and so I think, and it does, I mean, I I have never done a show on I know that you've done one on 9-11 before, haven't you?

[3:08] Jonathan Andrew Hume: I knew Harry as well, right?

[3:10] Harry Morrison: Yeah, I have, yeah.

[3:10] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah, but we the other the other we hadn't had we ran now. Um and I think um I don't know how it felt last time if it felt similar, if you can remember it because we had a gap, but um, but I I knew it would be it would feel different, but I don't think I was quite expecting it to feel quite as emotional as I did.

[3:31] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Because I've I've I've had lived through 20 years of night of anniversaries of 9 11. Do you know what I mean? So, and every year I've gone, oh yeah, that's it's a day that we should all acknowledge it and just remind ourselves and you know, watch the ceremonies they have in New York and X, Y, Z. Um, but doing this show on it, and I don't know whether it was 20 years made it more powerful or not. Probably you can answer that for me. But but I've I've I couldn't quite believe how upset I got.

[3:58] Harry Morrison: Yeah, it was it was I think like you said, this a first for a couple of us for a few of us to hear and I totally agree with you, Alice, that it was so emotional and didn't for a second think it would be that much. I think it's so interesting how it's like life's like that, isn't it? Until you're kind of it something comes into your ward, and obviously this has happened and we all know it happened, n 9-11, but until it it sort of bears more re relevance because of the fact that we're in the show and we're in that world and that space every I mean you but you have like a specific track that really and um my track in there having to deal with in my track the loss of a son or you know, any kind of loss with 9-11.

[4:42] Harry Morrison: It's it was so so so emotional. And I was asked to read the fireman's prayer, and just made me it just makes you just think about loss and you put yourself in the shoes a bit more.

[4:54] Jonathan Andrew Hume: 100%, and I think I get there anyway every day putting myself in those shoes, but also that felt so pointy to have actual words that would have been read out when there was a memorial, and yeah, to sort of celebrate, I suppose, the life and to think about people putting their life on the line like that. That's what I kind of was was quite sort of sad for me, I think, that day, you know, putting your life on, you know, having to put your life on the line for other people.

[5:22] Jonathan Andrew Hume: I think also the fact that this is our job, our job is to tell this story, and we are all aware, very much aware, especially from when we started rehearsing the show of how emotional a subject matter this is. And we're going on that stage eight times a week and performing this, and we have that responsibility of getting through it and not being so encumbered with all the emotion that comes with that.

[5:48] Jonathan Andrew Hume: So I think there's a level of um it's not like we're dampening it, but we're just we've got our guard up a little bit when we're doing the show in terms of keeping that emotion away from us. And I think with it being September 11th on that day, with the media coming out with all of the remembrance um footage and and reading about things in the in the papers and documentaries and stuff, the poignance of that day I think hit us.

[6:20] Harry Morrison: Well, it definitely hit me more than I thought it would do. Each of the lines were just so much more relevant to us.

[6:27] Alice Fearn: Yeah, yeah. But the audience that chose to come to the theatre on that day as well. I mean, the show I always think a show is half us and half them anyway. It's them that creates the atmosphere, the to and fro between us, and I just think what hit me most was the wave of support and sort of unity with the people who were in the auditorium as well.

[6:47] Alice Fearn: And they were all there not to have their private moment, which they could easily have been if they'd been affected by September the 11th, it could easily have been them coming to pay their private respects or something like that, but they weren't. Everybody was there to say this is us together now.

[7:03] Harry Morrison: Yeah, I I didn't know what to expect. I think we've been told it could they could be quite quiet. And they were. Well they could be, you know, fine and normal and if not the best audience. And I felt like they were the best audience ever here.

[7:13] Harry Morrison: And I was quite I would say I was shocked at that because I thought and I remember seeing, I can't remember if it's a it's in the Mine and the evening because we had two shows, but there was one guy in the front row that was absolutely sobbing like uncontrollably at the end, and yet laughing all the way through the show.

[7:29] Alice Fearn: Um because it's you know it has lots of comedy in it, the show. And I was like, so that's what it can do right there, can be really cathartic, yeah, yeah, for sure. And emotional, and yet at the same time you've had, you know, a a really fun in a way day remembering these this wonderful story, yeah, which I was just really shocked at. I don't think I was expecting it.

[7:48] Harry Morrison: I think there's a I think there's a thing as well with our audience as well, especially on that day, because we had some people, we had such a mix of people. We've got people who are fans of the show, we've got people who and some people who were involved directly, because we had some plane some people who were on planes.

[8:04] Alice Fearn: Um something and and also let's not forget that this is that the art that ours is a show about what came next and what the counterculture that came from it, and the evening performance, especially the f I found the matinee was really, really emotional. I felt like it was a really um but and then the evening performance still had that emotion, but there was like a sense of celebration about it.

[8:30] Harry Morrison: And I think the celebration, and this is where it ties into what's going in, what's going on now with kind of how people are reacting post-COVID and all the things that have been going on there, like another global world event that affected loads of people. It's the counterculture, and that's a thing that's people are celebrating.

[8:47] Harry Morrison: And that is okay to celebrate. It doesn't take away from the fact that what happened was awful and tragic and evil and all those things, but it's okay to celebrate the good things that come out of it because they're a completely separate thing. How they were caused or what they came from is a different thing.

[9:04] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And that for me was something that was so wonderful about it. You know, you get your moment where you're where we look at the screens and we watch it, and that's the moment that really roots it in this specific event. And also other stories that go on throughout it.

[9:17] Jonathan Andrew Hume: But the whole show is a celebration of the next bit, which is really important. Cool. Let's chat about where we were.

[9:25] Alice Fearn: So I was in A-level English, and I really remember because it was those TVs, you didn't have TVs in every classroom. So that you had to you they were on wheels. Remember those big TVs that were on wheels that they dragged into different classes?

[9:38] Alice Fearn: So she and uh Mrs. Um literally no idea hasn't got a memory of it. You don't mean not everyone had an iPad? Um and she wheeled it in and she said we're not doing English today.

[9:49] Alice Fearn: Mrs. Woodward, um, I remember, and she said, We're not doing a state, you need to watch this. And obviously it was nine o'clock in the morning, so we were watching it as it happened.

[9:52] Alice Fearn: Um, and I we went home not long after it, maybe a couple of hours later because school was cancelled. Um, and that was in Cumbria.

[10:03] Harry Morrison: How interesting that they felt the need for you to watch it.

[10:07] Alice Fearn: Yeah, I don't know if that was if it if they did that to much younger years, but we were we were 17, about to tell I was about to 10, 18. There was only three of us in that class, and we were all best friends, funnily enough, doing English, and uh yeah, and she did, and she went, No, what's up in it?

[10:20] Alice Fearn: And it and yeah, I I I've never really thought about that, but I think you know, we were in, as I say, we were in Cumbria, which is if no one knows like you know, you're nearly in Scotland, you're so far north in England.

[10:30] Alice Fearn: Um, in the middle of nowhere, we were all countryside, and yet it was this is this is globally important enough for a small town in Cumbria for the English class to to watch, and you have to watch this live.

[10:43] Harry Morrison: Yeah, how did you feel obviously? Because you know you're you're 17, you are you're in school, you're watching this in a non-comfortable place.

[10:54] Harry Morrison: You're not you're not at home. Yes, yes, yes. You know, you haven't got family or members around you that that level of support that you probably would necessarily want at that time. How did you feel around your with your classmates at that point?

[11:05] Alice Fearn: I I think it I I don't think we really took it in. You were like, I have to be watching a movie, because if you what if you watch any disaster movie um over the last 20 years, it looks pretty similar to what we had what we witnessed that day.

[11:18] Alice Fearn: So I think I was just this can't be real. I don't, you know, you can't really compute it when you're that far away at that age. I think I felt like the the age thing is a massive reason why I think understanding what that means at a similar age to Alice, a few years older, I was very much like this is this is I don't understand how this happened.

[11:44] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Words like terrorism or anything like that were pretty new to me, I'd say in my late teens. It was something that was of course you can see that there's something bad has happened, but in the first instance, I remember feeling like I've got no idea what this is all about.

[12:00] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And I think that the age has got a massive thing to do with that. That almost in the in the years past when you've gone older and now you read the news and you maybe more plugged into politics and other stuff, then it almost gained weight in the as it went along, or as you then said, Oh, okay, America, I've got family there, are they okay?

[12:18] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Or if it if it was personal to you in that in that way, then it became okay more of a yeah.

[12:25] Harry Morrison: So I was 15, I was at school, but I was at you know what's that secondary school yeah yeah yeah we weren't sent home I don't think we were even told yeah yeah um and obviously it happened early in the day so like had no idea got home like 15 late developer wanted to watch my cartoons and on the TV no cartoons on any channel it was all this thing I was only probably about four channels five channels oh yeah for sure yeah we didn't even have channel five no I didn't know yeah it was a bit grainy yeah um yeah so I remember and I was there and I was watching it and I thought because I wasn't I don't remember because I was only five when the kind of the big thing from before that I've been told since was the IRA stuff.

[13:08] Harry Morrison: Oh yeah but I was five I did I don't remember any of that and I remember watching it and again it was like watching a film because I had no concept of what was going on and I hadn't heard the word terrorism before and I remember that really hitting the word terror.

[13:21] Jonathan Andrew Hume: That's interesting and that was what it felt like but I remember it being a slow progression of watching it and then going oh hang on a second I need to watch it again oh hang on what is this what is this I'm watching and because I'd experienced nothing like it before and I was from this little village in the middle of Cambridgeshire you know where nothing really that terrible happened it was the first time that I was like wow okay this is massive and it's past anything that I have any reference point up to this point.

[13:50] Harry Morrison: So I remember it feeling really like I think and I think I watched it for a long time. Yeah I remember just watching the footage that was just replaying on the news yeah I but I barely remember where I was, to be honest.

[14:01] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah how old were you going to be able to do?

[14:03] Harry Morrison: I was were eight.

[14:05] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Were you born?

[14:06] Harry Morrison: Okay.

[14:07] Harry Morrison: So I was eight um and I had I was in my first days of primary school. And I'm pretty sure, I don't know whether I've kind of imagined it in my head, but I'm pretty sure that there was a TV above the reception that just always had the news on. And I remember not knowing about it on the day, um, but hearing about it from my parents. And um when you saw the you, you know, you you couldn't avoid the footage at all. When you saw it, you d you just felt numb. We were particularly because you know, we were in we were in London and it it felt like something that was distant.

[14:49] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah.

[14:50] Harry Morrison: But I could feel um a tenseness and nervousness with all of the adults around.

[14:56] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah.

[14:57] Harry Morrison: And that was what really really kind of hit me.

[15:00] Jonathan Andrew Hume: I mean it's a lot too. Do you remember how your parents spoke to you about it, how they brought it up to you?

[15:06] Harry Morrison: Yeah, it was uh it was we have this um we always have this time um after dinner where you know we have three little chairs in our living room and we sat sit in the living room and there's often we'll often like play some jazz or some Motown as we all like read our books and stuff. But then there's just a labor of jazz. That that when something important needed to be, you know, said the music went off, and then we had this conversation, and I remember them saying that this has happened, and I remember us having what I remember in particular is a few weeks later, us having um me asking them about a few things that had kind of come up in conversation at school afterwards, and one of the things was um about religion, and because my dad's side of um my family was um Muslim before, and my my dad converted to Christianity um before I was born, but everything that I knew of Islam was about peace and love and the rhetoric around the world was not reflecting that and I remember having these discussions and saying I don't I don't understand what what the things that I'm hearing at school, the things that I'm that you know I'm hearing on the TV and I'm seeing on the TV what what is going on, and it was those um conversations that made me nervous and and scared and um it was the I think it was the first time that um my parents talked about the idea of being othered.

[16:58] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Right, yeah.

[16:59] Harry Morrison: Um and that was quite terrifying. Um and then as you know, the anniversaries built up, um, I started to know more about what had happened, and you were seeing the um the impact, you know, negative mostly, but you know, some you know, some beautiful stories of heroism and um and and kindness coming out of it. But it was a I do remember it there being a shift in every single adult around me, particularly because we're in London, and you know there was a global impact, of course, but in big cities, everyone was terrified about what's next.

[17:42] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Well, also, because you say a really good line in the show that I think we sort of dramatise and we sort of take take the make out of it. In a way, I think there were hours after where we thought this is like when you say World War III is World War.

[17:54] Harry Morrison: Yeah, yeah.

[17:54] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And and no joke. Like there was like, is this now? This is the thing I remember most. That is the thing I remember most. I remember I was I wasn't at my home at that point, which was in London. I live already lived in London because I'm a little bit older than everybody at the uh I was in my mid-20s, so I was already living in London and working, and my husband I was already married, my husband not married to him anymore. Never mind. Uh, that's a different round table sometimes I'm not psych therapy. My husband at the time was working at the Globe Theatre, and that's all I remember was still trying to ring him on the landline because you cut mobiles were so expensive and you couldn't use it.

So I got this text, and I'm like, Ryan trying to ring him on the landline, going, don't go into London, please don't go into London. They're saying it might hit every capital city. That's the thing. And I just it was that was the terrifying thing. That was gonna hit London, it's gonna hit Milan, it's gonna hit Frankfurt. No one knew.

[18:52] Harry Morrison: My mum was called. So like I was working at the time. I was um I was doing a show, I was doing Lion King at the time, and um I remember we were in the middle of a rehearsal, and we had a break, and I went up to the company office to ask a question, and it was just silent. And everyone was just staring at the TV, and I looked, and then the first plane had been attacked, the first the first tower had been attacked, and we're just watching, thinking, Oh my gosh, this accident that's just happened, this is so terrible. Um, and thinking just like you said, this is a movie. It feels like it's a movie. This is some, you know, Stephen Spielberg's sort of special effects. And then the second tower got hit, and we saw it live, and there was just it's like the ground opened up, and that level of disbelief turned into absolute fear.

[19:50] Jonathan Andrew Hume: No, it because everybody knew nobody needed to be. No one needed anyone to tell us that. We knew it was an attack.

[19:57] Harry Morrison: Yeah, it wasn't at that point. It's so funny you said, but no one knows, because my mum told me a story recently because in the run-up to doing this talk, I was I felt the need to kind of speak to family and friends about where they were and what they were doing. And my mum said I remember perfectly, she was in Barbados at the time visiting family, and she was due to fly back home to London that same day as well. Right. And she said to me that her my aunt called her and was pleading with her, don't travel home, was so scared for her that something's gonna happen to you, this has happened, something's gonna happen, please don't fly home. And my mum was just very much like, no, I'm gonna fly, it's gonna be absolutely fine. And she did fly and it was fine, but you know that, like you said, that terror of we don't know this is gonna hit. Is it how many more planes are gonna you know? And yeah, it's not knowing was yeah, yeah, it's the start of something, yeah.

[20:49] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Unfortunately, it's something that you're having to consider, which before that nobody necessarily, or at least us, we we weren't considering. But it also felt legally happened, yeah.

[20:58] Harry Morrison: Absolutely. It also felt just like you were saying, how you noticed that there was a change in all the adults around you in the capital at that time in London at that point, you know, it's very much a tourist place. But then literally, within 24 hours, those streets had emptied so quickly because everybody was trying to get home, everybody was trying to call their families, and no one wanted to leave the house, or no one wanted to come into centre to in of London. I remember doing a show the night of 9-11 that day, they ended up putting it on, and the auditorium was huff because the tourists just like they went, they had to they tried to get home, they tried to leave, they wanted to be somewhere away from the the unsafe capital. So that was the feeling then.

[21:45] Jonathan Andrew Hume: So I suppose you know 20 years has happened now, or 20 years later. What has been the change? Has there been any change now over time in terms of the resonance or the way that you feel about what happened then?

[22:01] Harry Morrison: I think life changed. Life, everything the way everybody approached everything. Well, there's practical changes, aren't there? Airport security, yeah, actual things came in. You were probably terrified of flying, and actually from those moments on, they were the safest you could fly because the everything security-wise was at least bumped up too. I mean, you know, especially in the the direct aftermath of it. Um, whether that's maybe the same now, I don't know. But I mean, at least it's you know, it's relatively safe. But I don't know. I for me it was very different because as I say, I grew up in a in a in Cumbria, and so I I think I feel it's maybe unfair and I might get attacked by Cumbrians, but I I felt like like a couple of days after that it was yeah, so this is normal, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[22:49] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Well, if that's an age thing, as in maybe because I I would say the same at 15, it was kind of like it was a it was probably the closest hitting piece of news, and it was a big thing, and I knew it was a big deal, but there was a sense of it's a piece of news, and once that piece of news, and obviously that experience as a someone in a little village somewhere is very different from someone living on Manhattan or someone who was directly in the world.

[23:10] Harry Morrison: Well someone living in London, absolutely.

[23:12] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah, well that's the thing I I you know London is a very multicultural city. Um before this happened, it wasn't uncommon to see people walking around on a tube, walking around the streets, wearing the traditional religious um outfit, their garbs of whatever. And I know with with a lot of what was in the media, because there was there was good media and there definitely was bad media. I don't remember any good news. And you could not escape the the message of you need to now be vigilant, yeah. You need to suspect everybody. You suspect and there was this level of Islamophobia, yeah, that that basically was created.

[23:53] Harry Morrison: Yeah. And I used to sit on I remember sitting on a train very vividly sitting on a train and this guy had come in, and he I think he had just come from the mosque, and he um was wearing his his clothes and literally people got up and moved out of the carriages. And then people were the the train was very much packed apart from the three or four seats next to him.

[24:19] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah.

[24:20] Harry Morrison: And I just thought this is what people was. This is what's making people that what's making them do. Is it then and it is I mean it's just it's heartbreaking to to think and feel that, and that you understand why that is, and obviously you've got a media source telling you what's happened, you know what's happened, but that there's something so like you said, especially living in London, like for me as well, I'm London born and bred, I live in East London. I've always grown up around obviously. I'm black any in in my sense, my family, I'm ethnic, I'm an other anyway, but and I've always I've grown up in an area that's also the same. So people that absolutely would be my friends. I'd walk down and see lots of people in different colours, and I'm not thinking a minute about anything that you could be doing anything bad to me or want to do anything bad to anyone around me, and then to have that, like you said, because even as an ethnic minority, I probably felt the same thing, you know, going, Oh, I'm a little bit nervous about that brown person next to me.

When that's not with the bag, the probably brown person plus bag, maybe, because it was again you were so vigilant of backpacks and bags would suddenly listen to still are, you know, and still are like these things don't, and I think the thing that stays with me over the time, like you said at security, all these things, they don't they don't go back to what they were, which there's again there's probably reasons for that, but also there's a sadness in that to me that you're you're never you're never again um gonna look at it.

[25:51] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah, innocent innocent.

[25:52] Harry Morrison: That's it, yeah. You're never bag and you're gonna go, oh someone's left a gym here. Yeah, you're gonna go, has that got a bother. It goes to something negative. That's uh that's uh that's the sad thing about this to me. Is there anything good so that we can carry forward deal with that?

[26:08] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Possibly good that I I always come back to when I think about what happened. If you've watched any of there's actually it's a line that said in Love Actually, random, you know, stay with me, stay with me. And it's the opening where and and he says, you know, you know, they're talking about love, obviously love.

[26:33] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And he says, what was what what did when people were on the planes and they thought their plane had been hijacked and they were they were calling home or they were calling, they didn't call their neighbour to say, I PS, I really hate you for not putting your bins out on time. They didn't, you know, they didn't call their biggest enemy and say, you know, I just want to say I hate you. What they did was call everyone they love and told them they love them. And um, and no doubt that's what people did that they were locked in the buildings as well. And they all just went, I just want to call, you know, what what do we say in the show? What's the first thing that all the people in the planes want to do is they want to get to a phone and tell call their loved ones.

And I think that is what I try and grab hold of is that our first thought, and I say R as a general sort of global thing, um, when something terrible is happening, um, is oh I just want to make sure the people that I love are okay. Or I want to tell them at least that I love them just before, you know, the walls cave in or whatever. And and that's amazing that we actually that that's our first thought. It's not about hatred, it's about love.

[27:34] Harry Morrison: Yeah. And actually that thought probably extends to even strangers in that moment.

[27:38] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Totally, you know, I mean, like you were in the space where someone that we you didn't even know next to you, I'm sure you would hold their hand and be like, if we're going down, we're going down together and it's all up, like it would be even to the people you didn't know, probably in that moment they would have been just together. I think I think disasters like that, and you know, and and yeah, okay, we've the disasters that come out of it and the and the pain and the worry that came out of it. Just try and focus on that. And I think um that's what my sister always says look for the well, she she says that, but then she also says, just look for the helpers. That's my favourite thing about anything.

Anything bad that we ever have to see on TV, I will say to my six-year-old, this is done by hate, but look at all those people. Look at those people, look at the ambulance people, look at the firemen, which is all I was thinking about when you read that fire. It doesn't mean that you're ignoring the terrible. But let's let's balancing it. You're changing that focus, that focus is well, because what what is life if we're just looking at only the devastating aspects of it?

[28:39] Alice Fearn: There's an interesting thing. Horrible if we don't need to do that, isn't it?

[28:41] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah. I think there's an interesting thing with um, because I think there's a thing that we naturally want to do when something happens. And I think the more kind of I mean it's terrible, I didn't even say this, but the more kind of aware we are that terrorism happens and will continue to happen because the the world, yeah. Um there's the um the our reaction is no, we must be strong, we must be resilient, we must say no, we're gonna keep going on the tube because you've done this, so we're gonna prove to you that you can't we're not gonna live our lives in fear because you've done this thing. There's an interesting thing that happens in the show, um, which your character says, which uh and uh paraphrasing because I barely know my own part, but when she says um that she's found love, she's found this amazing thing, and she goes, but I'm very aware that we only met because this terrible thing happened.

And that's you know, there is a grieving process. There is something that we you know, because we can have this amazing thing where we all rally together and we all help each other out, which is fantastic and is brilliant, of course it is, and that's something to be celebrated, but there is still a grieving process.

[29:47] Harry Morrison: Yeah, we have to. Well, there's an element of survivor's guilt, isn't it? I suppose that's what you're thinking of is a little bit, isn't it? It's like, oh gosh, and yeah, um, but that that brings, I think that brings us really well to to what come from away means to us then. And what because we're talking about love being, you know, and you talk about the helpers, that's a brilliant thing to remember. Because what what are the people of Newfoundland the ultimate helpers? They're just it's the only thing they do know, I think is is just I all I do is I go straight into help mode. That's what they do. And we all play uh characters within those those help sort of roles, um, as well as our people that were suffering from the the from the planes and the people that were suffering directly.

And so I think that's what's that for me is I I always think when people say come from ways about 9-11, I always say that's a bit of a dud core, really. It's a bit of a you know, it's a bit of a bum steer because yes, okay, it wouldn't have existed, as we've already said, it wouldn't exist without 9-11, but actually it's not really about it at all.

[30:40] Alice Fearn: Um and the heart of it and the story and the message of it is is about what we're saying, which is you know, kindness, love, small acts, small acts. There was something interesting that came up in an interview that they did recently um when they were uh for the American for the for the Broadway show and they were talking about the fact that we multicast and we play different parts. It hadn't occurred to me that that's because it's to make the point that it is just people. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Like it's it's it's it's a it's a group of people, and and I think that is something wonderful. And also is and and doing stuff whenever you talk to a Newfoundlander and you talk to them about what they did, they will always say we didn't do it from trying to do it.

We didn't do anything with that. They had to do something, and that is and that's the same as what you were saying about like if you're there and someone needs their hand held hold holding, you told them you just hold the hand.

[31:30] Harry Morrison: Yeah, yeah. Why wouldn't you? Because we're humans and we want to support each other.

[31:34] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah. You see someone shivering, you go and get them a jacket or you go and make them a hot cup of coffee or a tea. It's that.

[31:40] Alice Fearn: For sure. How long after September 11th, 2001 was it that you heard about what the people of Gandhi had actually done?

[31:52] Harry Morrison: Can I just say literally when I came to see the show? So I want to say 2018. Like real talk. I was walking into the auditorium and came to see it on my own because I knew that you were in it. And some other one or two other cast members. And I was like, I've got no idea that this happened. No one has any idea.

[32:14] Jonathan Andrew Hume: As in like a particular event, obviously the planes had to land some. Obviously, there was more than that. No one thought about them.

[32:20] Harry Morrison: Literally. Well, the media definitely. Yeah, but Mrs. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Of course, there must have been somewhere on some news channel some good stories. But the vast majority would not have been celebrating anything.

[32:32] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And maybe again, that's because we're in the UK. The news we're getting is UK news. In the States, I'm sure, on more local channels, they were getting more of this story earlier on. Because I think um the writers, when they went when they were looking at writing a musical about they were actually going to do Beverly Bass.

[32:46] Harry Morrison: Yeah.

[32:46] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Right. And they said, oh, she's brilliant because she's the first female captain in America. That's great. What a great story that is. Oh, she actually landed in Gander. Let's go there and find out some stories. Oh my god, my case. But that was the journey. So not even they really knew until they sort of, you know, until these people started saying, hold on, we were there for five days and it was amazing. Actually, we had the most amazing five days, and we feel terrible saying that, but we kind of did.

[33:09] Harry Morrison: Absolutely mind-blowing in the sense of the n sheer number of people that landed there. And I know that's not a lot of population.

[33:16] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah, exactly. And it's a lot of people that would have been there, which is just crazy to think that that didn't make some kind of huge news story.

[33:26] Harry Morrison: Yeah, why was there not like a huge thing?

[33:28] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah, that's right, a big big deal that came out. They didn't make a fuss.

[33:30] Harry Morrison: Because they were true.

[33:32] Jonathan Andrew Hume: It was it was that's what they naturally do. They were always naturally I mean, because newfound they're they're that's where they are. They're on this little island and they're they're stuck with their fellow neighbours. So if one person is in trouble, they go and help them out. You know, that's that's the culture they've grown up with. And strangely enough, that culture and what happened over those five days after after September 11th, is the lesson of how to be in humanity.

[34:08] Harry Morrison: Well, I was gonna say, because I think it's told us, I mean, we're in it, and do you think it tells audiences when they watch it that we should all be a little bit more like that?

[34:15] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Oh, 100%. Because it does to me. Yeah, people I've I know lots of people who've come to see the show and immediately gone, right? What can I do? Yeah, yeah. Even just let the pay it forward, which is the you know, the campaign that was started um, you know, you know, yeah, by Kev T, and it I think then we still do it now, and that's amazing. And I think that I think people go, oh my gosh, I want to do something like that, even if it's just to do something a little bit kind that day. Yeah, um, you know, it doesn't have to be a hundred pounds, it's just to do a an act of kindness to move that forward because I definitely think it's taught I keep saying, I say, God, if we're all just a little bit more Newfoundlander, the world would be a nicer place.

[34:51] Alice Fearn: Definitely. Has it has the show being in the show, watching the show, hearing the stories about what it's about, has that given I don't want to say the word closure because it didn't actually directly affect us that much, but has it changed what you feel about not September 11th?

[35:11] Jonathan Andrew Hume: I think I see it as two different things. As in, I know that sounds might sound bizarre, but I it's I have to I can't mix the two. Um I can't mix something that is that specific event with this specific brilliant thing that came out of it. And I think the good thing that happens because of that is it means that this particular show is about uh September September 11th, but but the the what the show the message of the show, what the show's trying to actually get from their audience is directly um relatable to this to the situation we've just had, to COVID, to something something huge, something that affects so many different people. And so because of that, we can do the same thing. We can put that thing, that model of helping each other and of kind of going, right, okay, this terrible thing's happened.

What can we do to make these to get these people back on track? Yeah, you know, and that's and and this is where, and it's all on a scale, isn't it? Like that's what random acts of kindness are, is that there's still there's still like little things that just make someone's day better. And obviously it's a much much more uh it's a much more heightened version of it when something terrible, terrible happens. But it but there are versions of it across the scale which are kind of plantable in the world.

[36:31] Harry Morrison: I I would say for me it has kind of not I would disagree with you, darling. Disagree with you. Just go for it. That's what we've got to do. Round square table.

[36:43] Jonathan Andrew Hume: I I would say it has kind of book book ended if I I maybe don't mean that, but it's made me go, I I feel like I've I've done what I can to to tell the story this really important life event again. Yeah, you know, it's I feel like it does do that for me because I don't think I ever did because I was so young. And I don't think many people will ever get to. Do you know what I mean? You know, so it kind of for me does make me go, yeah. I'm I'm really glad I got to acknowledge that and say thanks and commemorate those people that that lost their lives and commemorate the people that um and sorry, and and celebrate the people that that saved lives and and helped afterwards. It kind of makes me go, yeah, I feel like I've done something there. It's my job.

[37:25] Alice Fearn: Um but it does make me feel like, oh yeah, I did that, and I feel like, you know, I've remembered them.

[37:30] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah.

[37:31] Alice Fearn: More than I would have done if I hadn't done the show.

[37:33] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah, definitely. I feel like it's reprogrammed my gut reaction hearing the words September the 11th. Now when I hear September the 11th, I think of warmth, I think of care.

[37:44] Harry Morrison: Yeah, how lovely.

[37:45] Jonathan Andrew Hume: People being kind to each other. That's what I think about, and I'm so glad.

[37:48] Alice Fearn: Yeah.

[37:49] Jonathan Andrew Hume: So grateful to them for writing it. It's funny looking back, right, everything that happened at September 11th and what that has done in terms of how it's changed the world and how it's changed people's perception of their own community and getting to know your neighbour and looking out for each other. I've noticed that from tragedies following that, with our own terrible tragedy in in London 7-7, um Grenfield Tower Grenfell Towers um and with COVID and other like Manchester bombing and stuff like that, that level of community seems to hasten. It seems to come a bit quicker than I actually remembered it ever happening before.

[38:31] Harry Morrison: Yeah, that's a good point.

[38:33] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Um, and I think what stories about that like come from away and the story I puts puts out there, I think it does change people's gut reaction, as you said, to two terrible tragedies. We do look out for our fellow man.

[38:47] Harry Morrison: For sure.

[38:49] Jonathan Andrew Hume: You know, we look out for each other, we call our friends, we call our family, we see how we're doing, and if we don't have anybody, what can we do?

[38:57] Harry Morrison: Yeah, the level of charity um has I think it's changed from what it used to be 20 plus years ago with sitting down at TV watching something on the television, oh call this number and donate two pounds. It's changed into something a little bit more proactive. What can I physically? And I wonder if part of the reason for that is when it was just news, when we got all our news from the news, it was reporting on the terrible things and the bad things, and they have a duty to report those things and to report them accurately. Whereas now, because we've got social media as well, and people can talk about, people can talk about the little stories as in like not diminishing what it is, but as in the stories that the news wouldn't necessarily immediately gravitate towards. So maybe we're more aware of those things and we can be inspired more than we can change the stories that we yeah that we we want to listen and hear, don't we?

[39:50] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Absolutely. We've got much more carte blanche to say, right? I don't want to listen to just this one view, I've got this view, this view, and this view, you know. I watch I subscribe to a page on Insta called Good News, I think it was one of those like the stories that are on there, they just literally can brighten your day. It can be the silliest thing about ducks or something totally random, and you're just like, I am so happy.

[40:15] Jonathan Andrew Hume: But how do you see people reacting to when they come and see the show? Have any of you guys, I know I have, but have any of you guys had experiences at stage door or around in life where people have found out that you're doing the show or they've watched you in the show and they've said, "I was there"? I had the guy that gave Beverly Bass the phone when she calls her husband on the plane. He came, yeah, in the first when I did it before COVID hit. And he just sort of grabbed me at stage door and just went, "Hi, I just need to say, I just, you know, I I'm the passenger that gave it the phone." And what it made me do, I think if anyone else did it as well, I would just put, "Oh my god!"

[40:59] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah, yeah. You know, because it just made me go, it's if it's real then, I'm really telling a real story. It's true, yeah. And that so yeah, I and he's come so many times. So you know it's, I'm not the first one he would have seen, but it's just yeah, you do you suddenly go, wow. And I remember Jenna actually telling me a story, and she came out once, and there were some ladies standing there, and they were sort of really trying to catch their breath and speaking to her, and she just went, "You mentioned Chip."

[41:29] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah, and she went, "Sorry," and they were, "Oh sorry, but Charles, we worked with him a number of times on different flights." Yeah, and I obviously say Charles Burningham who lost his life and he was the pilot of the plane that went into Pentagon. And they were sort of like really trying, and it's just amazing just to hear his name said out loud in a show, and it was just obviously very, very difficult. But yeah, I go back to that cathartic kind of quality to the show, you know.

[41:53] Harry Morrison: I'm sure it's very cathartic for them, yeah. Hard, but it maybe it keeps it there for them and keeps him alive and keeps all the time. And also remembering it in a way that they're choosing to remember it as well, as in how they want to process it. But I get a lot of friends come and see it who haven't, don't know the story or whatever, and they will see me afterwards. So say it's about what, ten minutes after the show's finished, and they'll start speaking about it and then they'll get upset all over again. Do you get that?

[42:17] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah.

[42:18] Harry Morrison: And they're like, "So," and it was just so nice. And you just, and you go, "My God, you're still living it, aren't you?" Like right now you're still because it does, it's the impact is beyond the initial response you get. And I do love that about it. I think and that just shows to me that it stays with you for much longer than just that applause at the end of the show. I mean what a privilege that we get to retell this true story.

[42:43] Alice Fearn: And you know, I don't know if I've, I've never so far in my career told a story that's been a true story. And this just apart from Lion King.

[42:56] Harry Morrison: Yeah, it's like yeah, that feels to me, and it's so new still for me is a journey like I feel so massively privileged to be telling this story.

[43:05] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah, because it is, it's real. And you have those moments on stage or after stage when you're meeting people and you're like, "Oh, this is."

[43:20] Alice Fearn: For sure. What would you want, what would your hope be for people to actually take away from the show? What lessons or what message would you like people to actually take from the show when they watch it?

[43:35] Harry Morrison: I think two main messages. I mean, there are so many, but you know, two main messages that are one that in the face of disaster, you know, global catastrophe, the only response is generosity and kindness and being welcoming and assisting, helping. It's that that is the only way to combat against you know acts that are disastrous and evil, and I think that that is what the show does in such a tangible way.

[44:17] Jonathan Andrew Hume: I think that message is only clear when you know September 11th stops being of an image of planes and buildings and becomes about people.

[44:32] Alice Fearn: Yeah, it's beautiful.

[44:34] Harry Morrison: And the moment you realize that it's people and people watch the show and the one word that just kind of pops up all the time afterwards is true, true, because it's true, especially for people who, you know, at the time when it happened only saw, like we've all been saying, it didn't seem real, it was a movie, and suddenly as soon as you put people in front of you, you're like, it's true, it's real.

[44:58] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And then the second message I think is that you can't make assumptions on who someone is based on what they look like, yeah, what they may, where they may appear to be from, like everyone is an individual, and I think you know the show does that beautifully in its narrative, but also in the technique of us playing multiple characters.

[45:28] Harry Morrison: There's, you know, there are moments in the show where you're not sure who a character is introduced, but you're not sure who that person is. Every single time I, the show happens and you are introduced, I and I'm walking in the darkness, I know that people think that I am the person from the Middle East until the spotlight comes on you.

[45:57] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And it's about challenging people's expectations, their biases. And the show does that beautifully well. It's about knowing that you know, if someone is described in one way, you don't automatically go to that person who you think matches that description. It's constantly challenging your views because we are programmed by society to think certain things, and it's about tackling those.

[46:26] Harry Morrison: Yeah.

[46:26] Jonathan Andrew Hume: So yeah, those are a very long way of saying the two things, main messages that I hope people take from the show.

[46:34] Alice Fearn: Wow. What hopes do we have then for like the world that we now live in?

[46:40] Harry Morrison: 20 years old. That's a big one, isn't it? You know, we've just been through you know one of the worst years of pretty much all our lives since probably, you know, since something like this. It's a must you know, it's an elongated catastrophe, really, for us all.

[46:56] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And I think what can upset me a little bit is when I see that it's almost forgotten about instantly, it's like you know, and people suddenly go into being really angry at someone on the tube, or you know, and it instantly goes back to Londoners, you know, because London can be a little bit, yeah.

[47:12] Harry Morrison: I mean, I could be it obviously, you know, you know, an escalator when someone stands at the top of an escalator, I'm still really living in that kind of later. Keep moving, guys.

[47:24] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And you know, and I get angry at myself that I've gone straight back to that because I was in London where literally no one was on escalators.

[47:31] Harry Morrison: Yeah.

[47:31] Jonathan Andrew Hume: You know, and now people are back on them. I'm livid again.

[47:33] Harry Morrison: Yeah.

[47:33] Jonathan Andrew Hume: You know, and all I wanted was an air like six months ago.

[47:36] Harry Morrison: Yeah.

[47:36] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And so I have to catch myself, and so I consider myself in this group that I'm talking about, but I want us all to, I feel just kind of remember and honour what it was and and try and change our view on it because you know as I say we can all be so angry all the time, we can all just get so caught up in our day-to-day lives, and actually we've just been through a terrible year, so let's all be a bit kinder to each other.

[48:04] Harry Morrison: Yeah.

[48:04] Jonathan Andrew Hume: It's been a terrible year.

[48:05] Harry Morrison: Yeah.

[48:05] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And I've, and it's like you can forget about the terribleness really easily.

[48:09] Harry Morrison: Very easily.

[48:10] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And actually we sort of should always remind ourselves and not to be depressed and sad and cry every day, to remind ourselves that come on, we can all be a bit nicer to each other, and actually the day is a bit better for it.

[48:24] Harry Morrison: Um and I kind of, and I want to try and teach myself that a little bit.

[48:29] Jonathan Andrew Hume: My sentence is try and be a bit more new for I think as well, like I mean, it's in the name, in it, we've been isolating for a year and a half.

[48:37] Harry Morrison: Yeah.

[48:37] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And actually longer than that. I mean, my personal views are with socials and stuff, we've been becoming more isolated and more kind of insular and looking at things.

[48:47] Harry Morrison: And I felt like before this, before COVID happened anyway, we were starting to break through that and move into being more aware of others.

[48:56] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And I think this, I really hope that we move into a stage where we break down those kinds of self-imposed barriers that we've got.

[49:06] Harry Morrison: And we do ask questions, and we're curious again because we've, you know, we went into, we fell into this awful trap of just having our own point of view and going if I shout about it loud enough, no one's gonna argue me because I'm right.

[49:19] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Like hope that's my hope. My hope is from any of these things that we get a little bit better at moving away from that quicker.

[49:27] Harry Morrison: Maybe we need like a member of the Newfoundland community to like be an ambassador for Newfoundland and go to every single country in the world and do a TED talk and just spread the Newfoundland love and hopefully I think we all have that though.

[49:44] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah, we all have because I think there's been moments in our lives, whether it be in your primary school class when you were six or whatever, you know, you've all had a moment where you felt like you belonged to a community, and if you fell down, somebody would pick you up.

[49:57] Harry Morrison: We've all had it, whether it was for six months or for the whole of our lives. I was blessed to grow up in a small fishing community on the northeast coast, which was very, very like Newfoundland. So when I read the musical, I was like, oh, this is, I think if we can keep keying into that feeling of what it was like to be part of that and then recreating it for each other to remind each other when we're not doing it, then yeah, that's how it thrives, isn't it?

[50:24] Jonathan Andrew Hume: That's how you keep it going.

[50:25] Harry Morrison: And we're lucky to have an element of that doing what we do.

[50:27] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah, every day. You know, that's what we're, we are a community, and we do kind of, especially in our show, we're in a community show, an ensemble show where we help each other out, and if one person doesn't help the other person, it stops the show, literally.

[50:40] Harry Morrison: So we kind of have that, but even we like everyone needs that kind of that reminder, that little thing which just says, "Listen, just do a little bit better."

[50:49] Jonathan Andrew Hume: I'm not gonna help you though if you mess up the chairs.

[50:54] Harry Morrison: I'll tell you what though, that's a, I mean, thank I think that's a perfect place to kind of finish because I mean that's what this round table has kind of given me is that moment to reflect on being a little bit better and remind myself of what is important and the lessons that we learn from a show such as Come From Away.

[51:16] Alice Fearn: I mean, do you guys feel that as well?

[51:18] Harry Morrison: Yeah, I just, I'm just glad that we get to be in a show that can act as a vehicle to talk about poignant subjects like this.

[51:28] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah.

[51:28] Harry Morrison: And I hope that many, many more shows and theatre can be used in the same way for people to have, you know, these lessons kind of talked about and at the same time as having a great night.

[51:44] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Yeah, absolutely. It feels so important, doesn't it?

[51:47] Alice Fearn: Guys, and it has been nice. It's been really lovely.

[51:58] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And there you have it. Alice Fearn, who plays Beverly and others, Harry Morrison playing Oz and others, Gemma Knight Jones as Hannah and others, Kate Graham, who plays Diane and others, Sam Oladeinde playing Bob and others, and Jonathan Andrew Hume, who plays Kevin J, Allie, and others, and the West End cast of Come From Away.

[52:17] Jonathan Andrew Hume: And there is a reason others is part of their credits, because the number of people that the cast members play is truly remarkable and something that really needs to be seen to be believed. And if you haven't seen it, please treat yourself to a magical evening at the Phoenix Theatre in London's West End in one of the most unbelievable stories of hope, love, friendship, and community that has ever been brought to the stage.

[52:42] Jonathan Andrew Hume: Thank you for listening to this very special episode of Welcome to the Rock on the Curtain Call Podcast, part of the Broadway Podcast Network.