HowlRound TV political theatre as civil rights performance of BÉZNĂ Theatre’s ILLEGALISED — an international, multi-lingual production exposing the dehumanising effects on migrants and asylum-seekers of the British state’s anti-immigration policies.

  • Director-writers Sînziana Koenig & Nico Vaccari
  • Actors: Lizzie Clarke, Theo Green, Ahmad Sakhi, Oana Pușcatu
  • Produced by Claire Gilbert

The play is structured as a series of vignettes – at a level predictable and militant in order to be didactic. The overall intention is to raise awareness of the inhuman pressures migrants face daily in the UK in relation to their hopes and dreams and the host’s colonial past. After all, the old Brits didn’t colonise other nations because they loved them or considered them their equals. However neither the text nor the interpretation go far enough to challenge or convey what really is at the heart of British society outside the broken promise of fairness, justice and equal opportunities when it comes to the undesirable status of migrant that too often leads to mistreatment and abuse. No solutions devised or suggested by migrants themselves are explored. On another plane, one can only wonder what has happened to the many illegals during the pandemic and how far many are/were pushed below the vulnerable line. Just to mention the number of suicides, and what we don’t know but surely can suspect, happened. And not to forget how this predicament appears to be for the British system and its employed henchmen a way to play rulers if not masters… as BLM confirmed recently.