Another migration drama hits the bull’s-eye
Daniel Nelson
Migration dramas - particularly first-generation questioning of their parents’ attitudes - are a rich vein in London theatres.
We’ve recently seen The Fellowship and Running With Lions, both about three generations of a British Caribbean family; Lotus Beauty, set in a Southall salon; House of Ife, with its Ethiopian-British spin on first-generation migrant tropes; Marys Seacole, a fresh look at the story of the Jamaican nurse and entrepreneur who came to prominence in the Crimean War in the 1850s; Mohand & Peter on a trip to Sudan; Two Billion Beats, about British-Asian sisters; Eng-Er-Land, which looks at football, babes and fit boys, racism and identity; Malindadzimu, which starts as a sharp-tongued Zimbabwean-British mother-and-daughter clash and ends as a foot-stomping spiritual African rebirth.
In addition, we’ve seen Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s-Now (“We became West Indians in London”), and two excellent TV series, Made in Birmingham, which travels with a South Asian family down its British generations, and Lenny Henry’s Caribbean Britain.
These and other plays and documentaries embrace an array of writing, acting and production talent, and are only a part of the list.
Now comes a new play at the Blue Elephant in Camberwell. Give Me The Sun is short — barely an hour — and its title, a cry from the heart about longing for a forgotten homeland, sits awkwardly in this exceptionally hot British summer. But it more than earns its place in the current boom in migrants on stage.
It’s a father-son drama. They left Egypt when Bashir was four. Now he’s 18 and he wants answers, perhaps jogged by his Palestinian girlfriend: why did they leave? Why hasn’t his father re-married? Is his doctor father really happy working for Tesco? (“We came here for freedom.” “What do we get for this freedom?”)
Baba has ruthlessly turned his back on Egypt and has put all his effort into making Bashir British. Bashir doesn’t feel rooted here, but has almost no links or information to his parents’ past, or to relatives, and doesn’t speak Arabic.
It’s an old dilemma but writer Mamet Leigh (a pioneer of the Tehran Underground Theatre Movement) hits the spot and actors Aso Sherabayani and Joseph Samimi breathe real life into it.
Small theatre with a huge heart.
* Give Me The Sun is at the Blue Elephant, 59a Bethwin Road (entrance in Thompson's Avenue) SE5, until 30 July. Info: 7701 0100/ http://www.blueelephanttheatre.co.uk/