One man, two countries, nine lives

Daniel Nelson 

Asylum and discrimination are at the centre of Nine Lives, a one-hour, one-man, nine-character play – by a migrant – that has been on tour since June and comes to London in January.

Writer Zodwa Nyoni is from a Zimbabwean family who live in Britain and her character, Ishmael, is Zimbabwean. But the play is from her head and heart, not her experience.

Nevertheless, Nine Lives is rooted in reality.

Nyoni had a friend who lived in a Leeds tower block and she bumped into him during a trip to Zimbabwe. He had been deported and told her his story. It opened a new world, and she began researching. “I wanted to find what it really meant to be an asylum-seeker.”

What she found is common currency for those who have sought asylum but which is unknown to most Britons: the waiting, the assumption of dishonesty, delays, the paperwork, the invasive questions, the frustrations, the dehumanisation, the cramped life, the bureaucracy, the mental stress.

Ishmael faces another layer of embarrassment, stress, disbelief, hardship and Kafkaesque questioning because he’s gay (“What does a penis feel like?”)

Making the play a one-man performance is intended to accentuate the difficulty, the gruelling nature of the application process (as well as humanising it for an audience), so the impact comes from the words and the performance. Words are no problem for Nyoni. She was a poet before she fell in love with theatre and story-telling (“but poetry is still there”) and words pour out of her.

One reviewer wrote: “Nyoni’s interweaving of naturalism and poetry is superb and lifts this show far beyond documentary, into unforgettable solo drama about one of the key experiences of our time.”

I haven’t seen it yet, but others have said it’s full of humour and humanity.

Asked by a BBC Arts programme what she wants audiences to get from the play, she replied, “An understanding … or even just begin to question what you read in the newspaper, what you hear on television. For me this was about putting the human story about one person. What you always get is a mass number - 2,000 asylum-seekers, 5,000, 6,000. But what does that mass really mean? Who are the people behind that number? It’s about putting the human story behind one person.”

* Nine Lives is at the Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, until 30 January. Info: 7503 1646

+ 16 January

* Platforma Jam, music from young refugees and migrants in London, 5.30-6.30pm, free

+ 23 January
* Music from Zimbabwe, 5.30-6.30pm, free  

Lladel Bryant in Nine Lives

Image by Nine Lives

+ 30 January

* Bards Without Borders, refugee and migrant poets inspired by Shakespeare, 5./30-6.30pm