Coming to England at Birmingham Rep

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Wed 19 Feb 2025 - Sat 22 Feb 2025

During Black History Month this October, writer and presenter Floella Benjamin is encouraging people to learn more about the experiences of families who moved from the Caribbean to the UK by booking the show based on her childhood Coming to England.

The production returns to Birmingham Rep in February of next year before touring the UK. Premiered at The Rep in 2022,Coming to England is a colourful blend of storytelling and song featuring Floella’s journey from Trinidad to London as a ten-year-old – and her experiences in the new country.



Her jazz musician father had answered the call to move to Britain and her mother had followed a year later with two of their children. Floella and three of her other siblings remained in the Caribbean being looked after by foster carers for more than a year before joining their parents.

When they arrived in England, the children discovered not a benevolent motherland but instead hardship and racism. But Floella was determined not to let prejudice prevent her from achieving all she could in life.

Setting her sights on a career as an actress, she initially worked onstage before moving to television where she became a familiar face to millions of families as a presenter on Play School and Play Away in the 1970s and 1980s.

Floella was inspired to write her memoir by her own children who wanted to know more about her adventures.%% “When my children were little they asked me what was it like when I was a child and I realised that there were no books which described my childhood. Living happily in one culture, then your parents leaving you behind to go and rebuild Britain. Being left with foster parents before finally coming to England to be a family again but having to face rejection and adversities when you came to the motherland with people making you feel as though you don’t belong.

Learning how to make the most of life in Britain and to feel as though you are worthy and being encouraged along the way by the love shown to you, especially by your parents.”%%

Floella’s career has been multi-faceted taking in not just writing, performing and presenting but also as a politician campaigning for children’s rights. Her contribution to the UK was recognised with an OBE in 2001 and her appointment as a life peer in 2010 as Baroness Benjamin of Beckenham.

Coming to England was first published in 1995 but Floella says its message remains important today and she hopes people of all ages and backgrounds can take inspiration from her story. “There are more and more people now living in Britain from all different parts of the world and many will be going through almost everything I did 64 years ago. Trying to navigate their way through a sometimes hostile environment, facing adversity, rejection and not having that feeling of belonging. So the book Coming to England, which is in almost every school in the country, is making a real difference. It is a comfort tool and it also opens people’s eyes to what those who are different from you are going through. Also it helps teachers to approach the subject in an all-embracing way.”

And she hopes the stage show, which is adapted by David Wood, brings her story to new audiences. “I first appeared on stage 54 years ago and still love performing in the theatre as it’s a way of bringing a story to life in an emotional way and the reaction from the audience is instant. The feeling of conjuring up images and stimulating the imagination is one of the best experiences which always gives me a thrill,” she says. “So I hope it will be the same for the performers in Coming to England - the show is written to do just that.”



The story has something to say to us all, Floella explains: “The message of Coming to England is that we all need to show consideration to one another and don’t judge others in a negative way because they are different from you. Try to be a good person, feel worthy and if others are being negative and abusive towards you for whatever reason, it’s their problem not yours because they don’t know what love is. Just keep smiling, it shows you are confident and most importantly, winners smile. So, prove to the world you are a winner.”

Floella is The Rep’s patron of youth and education and is a keen believer in supporting children in the arts, not only by creating shows for them but also in encouraging them to develop their own skills. Last year she launched the Baroness Floella Benjamin Young Rep Hub – the theatre’s on-site centre for its outreach work across the community.

“The Hub is offering so much to children and young people who perhaps don’t have the opportunities to find a space to be creative,” she says. “It matters for young people to be creative because it helps them with life. It makes them feel good about who they are and makes them feel they can make a difference, they can participate in something that is positive, they can change the world. To me, this is synonymous with the future. I see it as something that is going to lead to a better world that is needed so much. That world that is craving for different thinking, for inclusivity, for diversity. The Baroness Floella Benjamin Young Rep Hub will be a glimpse of what the future is going to hold.”

Coming to England plays Birmingham Rep on Feb 19-22, see here for more information and tickets.

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