New Play Celebrating the Life of Boxing Legend to Open this Spring

Hinton Magazine
8 hours ago
4 min read

A new play inspired by legendary boxer Sir Henry Cooper Dancing in the Mirror will open in late May with a site-specific performance in his former training ground, The Fellowship Inn in Lewisham. Cooper’s nephew, opera singer Neal Cooper will make an appearance as his uncle alongside a cast of professional actors and community players in this play with live music written by Sunday Times best-selling author Rhik Samadder.

Dancing in the Mirror follows Jade, a young boxer living in Belingham who is drawn into a world of buried secrets when she discovers her estranged father is still alive. Spanning a century of South London life from 1919 to the present, this story of identity, belonging and the weight of the past features a professional cast of eight alongside forty members of the Lewisham Creative Chorus, a local performance group based at The Fellowship Inn since 2022.

The Fellowship Inn is a Grade II listed 1920s pub famous for being the training ground of Cooper before his iconic 1963 fight with Muhammad Ali. The production marks the centenary of the pub, originally purpose-built as a community arts hub for the Bellingham Estate which has seen local gigs from the likes of Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton and John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers.

Sir Henry Cooper was a British professional boxer, undefeated in British and Commonwealth heavyweight championship contests for twelve years. The only British boxer to have been awarded a knighthood, he is best known for his 1963 fight against Muhammad Ali and was twice voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Cooper grew up on the Bellingham Estate in Lewisham where he started his boxing career in 1949, as an amateur with the Bellingham Boxing Club.

To support the production costs of the show, director Thomas Guthrie will step into the ring at Miguel's Boxing Gym in Brixton on Monday 23^rd March to face Julius Francis, former British and Commonwealth Heavyweight Boxing Championknown for fighting Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson,. The special fundraising match is part of the Big Give Arts for Impact week (17 – 24 March) a seven-day online match funding campaign supporting arts and culture charities working to achieve societal impact across the UK, run in partnership with Figurative Philanthropy for Arts & Culture (FPAC). Guthrie has been training with Lewisham Creative Chorus member Richard Simms. An ex-con, lifelong boxer, community activist, Richard's life journey and transformation through community arts reflects the lived-experience of the local community which runs through Dancing in the Mirror.

Playwright Rhik Samadder said, “Spending a year embedded in the Lewisham Creative Chorus has been profound. What a wealth of experience, talent, and ideas there is in this extraordinary group, and artistic seriousness. I can't wait for them to show the world. It has also been a joy to spend creative time with my mother- who it turns out is an inspiration to everyone. She's far more popular than I could ever be, and the therapy bills for coming to terms with this will surely bankrupt me”.

Director Thomas Guthrie said, “All art, all storytelling is communal. The idea that 'community art' is somehow lesser makes no sense at all to me. The more human, the more connecting, the more rooted in a time and place, the better. Working with Rhik, the Lewisham Creative Chorus and the whole creative team here has been extraordinary. We can grow from project to project in a way that isn't possible in a one-off production. Dancing in the Mirror is the fruit of many lives' work - and an enormous joy.”

On training for the fundraising boxing match, Guthrie added, “Training with Richie has not only been an extraordinary experience in itself, it's deepened how I understand Jade, the whole show even. The mental focus, the physical courage, the particular kind of pride involved in standing in front of someone who wants to beat you down and holding your ground - that's what this play is about - and what Henry Cooper was all about too.”

Rhik Samadder is an author, journalist and actor local to Lewisham. Rhik is the Sunday Times best-selling author of I Never Said I Loved You, an autobiographical memoir which is currently being adapted for television. His acting work includes The Indian Boy(Royal Shakespeare Company), Romeo and Juliet (Salisbury Playhouse), King Saturn (Soho Theatre), Fewer Emergencies (Oxford Playhouse), and No Smoke (Arcola Theatre). Rhik is a regular columnist for the Guardian with his feature series Inspect a gadgetand Rhik Samadder tries something new. Dancing In The Mirror marks Rhik’s playwrighting debut.

Thomas Guthrie is an award-winning British director and musician working in theatre and music with a conviction that community-led creative projects can be among the most valuable and life-affirming. A former Jette Parker Young Artist Stage Director at the Royal Ballet and Opera in London, Thomas’s previous productions include Aida at Barcelona’s Liceu, the opening of the Edinburgh International Festival 2025 and productions at La Scala, Longborough and RBO itself. Thomas founded MTFA in 2014 with a passion to connect social and local issues with storytelling of the highest quality. He launched the Lewisham Creative Chorus in 2021, and together they have written, produced and performed productions including Our Street and Stories We Tell Ourselves.

Music and Theatre For All (MTFA) is a Lewisham based arts organisation dedicated to making the best quality live music, theatre and storytelling available to as many people as possible. Through aspirational productions, collaborative programmes and transformational thinking, much of its work brings local participants together with professional artists to create original work inspired by lived experience. At its core, the organisation champions excellence through inclusivity, accessibility and the transformative power of live performance.