Horrors of Post Office scandal being brought to stage by county theatre group

The ongoing fallout from the miscarriage of justice is part of an inquiry, which is currently taking place.

In Shropshire, two Post Office workers faced the ultimate injustice, being wrongly jailed as part of scandal.

Tracy Felstead, from Brookside, Telford, and Rubbina Shaheen, from Shrewsbury, were among dozens to have their names cleared by the Court of Appeal in 2021, after it ruled that the Post Office's defective Horizon computer system made their prosecutions "an affront to the public conscience".

Now two theatre groups Pentabus and New Perspectives, are marking their 50th anniversary celebrations, and a combined 100 years of world-class rural touring theatre, with 'Make Good', a new musical three years in the making that tells the story of the Post Office Scandal.

The show will tour in Autumn this year with dates and venues to be announced in the coming months.

Make Good is directly informed by conversations writer Jeanie O’Hare has conducted with affected sub-postmasters since 2021.

Entirely innocent, they nevertheless had their lives torn apart and faced bankruptcy, isolation, and jail.

The epic fightback to prove their honesty started in a tiny village hall in Fenny Compton and is still ongoing.

Capturing in song the bravery and determination of those who fought back, Make Good shows what can happen when powerless people find their voice.

On a recent rehearsal room visit, Mohamed Hami, affected by the scandal, commented: “The musical is full of feeling. And that’s what we need to portray to people now, so that they can feel and understand what we felt, all the heartache that we went through.

"The songs bring so much to the story, they’re heartfelt and there’s humour in it too, it’s funny. It made me smile as well as being touching.”

The Post Office Scandal saw more than 900 sub-postmasters in the UK wrongly prosecuted for stealing because of incorrect information from Fujitsu’s Horizon computer from 1999 to 2015.

The recent ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office is credited with igniting public interest in the scandal and led to demands for former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells to be stripped of her CBE, and PM Rishi Sunak to announce new legislation to exonerate wrongly convicted sub-postmasters.

Make Good is described as a musical testament to the astonishing resilience of families facing incredible odds in a system stacked against them with the sub-postmasters’ experience and community at its heart.

Elle While, Artistic Director of Pentabus and Director of Make Good, said: “When Jeanie approached me with the idea of making a musical inspired by the stories of the wrongly accused sub-postmasters, I knew this was a Pentabus story.

"Their campaign started in a village hall and it feels apt that Pentabus and New Perspectives intend to take this heroic story back into the villages and kind of community spaces where this fightback began.”

New Perspectives Artistic Director Angharad Jones added: “When Pentabus and New Perspectives got together to discuss this co-production, we couldn’t have imagined the distance travelled in the public consciousness about the shameful miscarriage of justice shown to sub-postmasters helped by Gwyneth Hughes marvellous TV drama.

"Theatre is a vehicle for activism and drama can be a call to arms. And this fight is not over. We’re honoured to bring this story to the stage for the first time, but also raging it needs to be told in the first place.”

Book writer Jeanie O’Hare commented: “When the pre-election bluster of politicians has run out of spit, the heartache will still be there. The family bonds that held the sub-postmasters and postmistresses together were built on love, community and hope. Song is how you celebrate that.”

The first few dates of the tour are now on sale at https://pentabus.co.uk/make-good-post-office-scandal.

Further dates are to be announced.