My Beautiful Man –Development Showing

By Alana Valentine

I chose you Tori and I never looked back I chose your beauty and I always knew that It went all the way through your body and mind And you my love were the greatest find of my whole entire life

On December 15, 2014 eighteen people were taken hostage in the Lindt Café in Sydney’s Martin Place. After a sixteen-hour standoff, a single gunshot was heard and police stormed the café. Tragically Tori Johnson, the heroic Lindt Café manager, lost his life that day, as did another hostage, Katrina Dawson.

Eight months earlier, a six-year-old Wollongong resident, Henry Hinchcliff, had travelled to the Lindt Café with his family and friends. Living with eosinophilic esophagitis meant Henry could only eat fifty types of food, including chocolate, but it had to be Lindt 85 percent cocoa and they didn’t make an Easter egg out of it. But in an act that his family recognised as ‘just the sort of kindness Tori would do’, the Lindt Café manager had offered to make Henry his very own, first-ever Easter egg.

In 2015 an inquest into the siege began, and the findings were released in 2017. In it, Tori Johnson’s partner of 14 years, Thomas Zinn and Tori’s mother Rosie and father Ken Johnson, a prominent Australian artist, spoke of their loss and paid tribute to Tori’s courage.

Sat 3 Jun 11am Main Auditorium | Wollongong Town Hall

Approx. 1 hr 30 mins (no interval)

Recommended for ages 13+

Reserve your spot at merrigong.com.au/merrigongx