Four powerful real-life stories are coming to the stage in Milton Keynes

A new live event in Milton Keynes is bringing people together to do something incredibly simple, but increasingly rare, sit in a room and listen to each other’s stories.

A Human Story takes place at the Chrysalis Theatre on Friday 2nd October and will see four people share true stories from their lives, exploring grief, resilience, identity, change and human connection.

The event was created by Milton Keynes dad and content creator Andy Simpson, who discovered the power of sharing his own story after experiencing profound loss.

Andy’s son Edward died when he was just 22 months old. Years later, following the death of Zoe, the mother of his boys, Andy became a single father raising three children.

Through speaking openly about grief, fatherhood and life with his family aboard a narrowboat, Andy found something he hadn’t expected, community.

People began sharing their own experiences with him, and conversations developed between people who might otherwise never have spoken.

That experience became part of the inspiration for A Human Story.

Andy said: “Sharing my story didn’t change what happened to me, but it changed what happened afterwards. It connected me with people.

“I think we spend so much of our lives passing people without ever knowing what they are carrying. There is something incredibly powerful about hearing somebody say, ‘This happened to me’, and realising that perhaps you’re not as alone in your own experiences as you thought.”

Joining Andy on stage will be Kim Smith, who became a quadruple amputee after contracting sepsis and later underwent a pioneering hand transplant, Mandy Legg, speaker and author whose work explores identity through crisis and change, and Adam Lind, author of Floating Home and an advocate for human connection.

The event will also be hosted and MC’d by John M. Sweeney, co-founder of Drop Dead Generous and founder of Suspended Coffees, which grew into a global kindness movement reaching hundreds of thousands of people across 34 countries.

Rather than traditional motivational speeches, each person will simply be given the space to tell a real story from their life, including the difficult parts, unexpected moments and experiences that changed them.

Andy added: “I don’t want people to come away being told how to live their lives. I hope they leave thinking about the stories they’ve heard, but also about the stories being carried by the people around them.

“Every person has a story. Sometimes we just need to make the space to hear it.”

A Human Story takes place at the Chrysalis Theatre, Milton Keynes, on Friday 2nd October 2026.

Tickets are currently £15 and are available from the Chrysalis Theatre website.