Kevin Fegan, after Mende Nazer and Damian Lewis
Feelgood Productions
The Lowry, Salford
October 9-12, 2024: 2 hrs 25 mins
(Also at Shakespeare North Playhouse, Prescot, 22-24 October)
Caroline Clegg’s Feelgood Productions is celebrating its 30th anniversary – and not with self-congratulation or an easy piece of upbeat fun, but with a return to the committed, campaigning, true-life drama that stamped its authority on the theatre world 14 years ago.
Back in 2010 few were aware that there was such a thing as modern slavery, still less that it was being practised here in the UK as well as in other places. This show won the "best new play" accolade in the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards and, among other distinctions, was performed in the House of Lords, helping the campaign that led to Baroness Caroline Cox’s Modern Slavery Act of 2015.
It tells the story of Mende Nazer, a girl from the Nuba mountains in Sudan, abducted and sold into domestic servitude in Khartoum. She is later sent to London and, after eight years as a household slave, escapes and (ultimately, after much campaigning on her behalf) is recognised as having refugee status by the UK.
The play tells her story simply, vividly and with no attempt at doctoring the truth for the sake of effect. There are good and bad people in it, some better or less evil than others, some caught in the grip of situations they cannot change, some who try to do right but whose efforts achieve little. In other words, it’s real.
For this new production the play has been updated, with a section inserted (a bit awkwardly, as it interrupts Mende’s story’s timeline) near the end, referring to the tragedy of today’s war-torn, famine-racked Sudan. Fighting factions led to the birth of South Sudan as an independent state in 2011, and the remaining part of the country has not found peace for years.
The greatest quality of the play lies in its performers. Yolana Ovide (who has been working at Chester Storyhouse) is outstanding as Mende herself, and so is LIPA-trained Ebony Feare as her friend Kheko. Other character studies with impact come from Chris Jack as her father, Oluwalonimi Owoyemi as her brother, Sara Faraj as the two wealthy, privileged women who determine her fate as their “servant”, and Joseph Jordan in several key roles. In fact there is no weak link, with Teddy Oyediran and Mohand Abdalrahem mopping up many of the multiple roles through which the entire cast tells the story.
For the first night, Mende Nazer herself was present, and Feelgood patron Julie Hesmondhalgh was among supporters in the audience. Modern slavery and human trafficking are still very much around and MP Anthony Steen, founder of the Human Trafficking Foundation, is supporting continued showing of the play. Feelgood's tour is hoped to raise, with the Mende Nazer Foundation, enough money to build a new clinic in the Nuba mountains.
More info and tickets here
