Background to the play.
Refugee Tales Project-Walk:
The play was inspired by the Refugee Tales Walk of 2016 from Canterbury in Kent to Westminster in London, following the pilgrims’ route of Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales. Organised by the co-founders, Professor David Herd from University of Kent and Anna Pincuss the co-ordinator of the project, the participants were from various backgrounds, including refugees, detainees, writers and dramatists.
In listening, and sharing their stories, they walked to raise awareness of the plight of the refugees in England. The fictional play was borne from weaving the experiences of the detained men and the dedicated work of the visiting group.
John Clare:
It was also inspired by the nineteeth century poet John Clare’s poem ‘I am’. Locked in a lunatic asylum, where he wrote the most poignant metaphysical poems, his work smacks of a detainee mindset. Isolated from his family and friends, left to seek spiritual solace and hope in his mind and nature, he understood alienation, fear and detention.
Play Synopsis.
The play is about Hope. As the past is a magical puzzle of hindsights, we cannot write the future. But we can make choices that affect it.
Imagine hopelessness: rejection, betrayal, murder, and assuming anothers identity. Imagine walking the Sahara Desert, sailing rough seas and ending up in detention as a refugee, in a country beset by economic and moral uncertainties…
Imagine Hope: A visitor…