Nine Lives (Arcola Theatre)
Our newspapers and televisions show us immigrants: lines of people coming in. They don't show us what those immigrants – let's just call them people – see of us in return: our country and our customs, yes, but our attitude towards them too, be it kindness or hostility.
Zodwa Nyoni's monologue, commissioned by West Yorkshire Playhouse and Scotland's Òran Mor, presents us that perspective. You could say that it shows us the state of the nation as seen through fresh eyes, eyes that take everything all together. Ishmael (Lladel Bryant) stands on a high street in Leeds and surveys the scene: the Greggs stores and the 'Two-for-One' offers, the pubs and the tracksuits and fridges dumped on the pavement; a tribute to one Alan Bennett – whoever that is. It's like he's processing Britain, even as it processes him.
Ishmael ran from his native country, Zimbabwe, fleeing from the mobs that attacked him for his sexuality. He lands in England and lives a precarious "conveyor belt" existence, as he's considered for asylum. By day, he sits in a Sanctuary Point, before returning to a shared flat, temporary accommodation, with a mouldy kitchen sink and a damp problem. His housemate is forcibly removed after another failed appeal. All Ishmael wants is somewhere to start calling home. On an empty stage with only a suitcase, he still seems nomadic in Alex Chisholm's production.
Invisible too: ignored in the corner of a proper English café, exploited by a rogue landlady and largely unprotected by a state that basically forgets about him, beyond a £36 a week allowance. Otherwise, he's registered only for his difference – not least by the snarling teenager with a snarling dog, who steals his food parcel.
The one exception is Bex, a young single mother he befriends in "Dogshit Park," who treats him like the person he is, trusting him with her son, Bailey. Nyoni draws a delicate parallel between the two of men: both were almost killed – Ishmael at home, Bailey in the womb – but both got fresh chances at life.
Nyoni's particularly good in dealing with freedom: the "prison" of Ishmael's accommodation and the limits on his spending contrast against something more essential – the means to express himself, either on the gay scene or under his real name. That's why he's come to this country: for the chance to be himself.
In some ways, it's a slip of a piece – only 55 minutes long and more illustrative than it is illuminating. Bryant's brilliant though, always engaging and likeable as Ishmael – not least thanks to his skilful multi-roling that makes you warm to the actor as well as his character.
For all its empathy, however, Nyoni's writing can feel a little straightforward. It's missing that sense of something almost overwhelming – a form that feels something like freefall. Ishmael is an outside observer on England, but he mostly makes good sense of it. Just occasionally, then, this feels life a story at odds with the truth its trying to tell: a narrative corrective, but a narrative nonetheless.
Nine Lives runs at the Arcola Theatre until 30 January.
