As take my seat at the packed-out theatre in Stratford, I overhear a couple reading from the programme of Glasgow Girls, the performance we’re about to see: ‘the asylum system works on a one size fits all basis...the system is bad at hearing people’s individual stories.’ I’ve seen that, I think. But my heart is also slightly sinking. I’m wondering if we’re about to be subjected to two and a half hours of people singing the stories of refugees. Asylum Monologues, a play in which real life transcripts from people’s asylum interviews are performed on stage, is great. But this is a musical. There will be singing. And dancing. A friend once told me he saw an opera singer belting out excerpts from the UN Refugee Convention at the Liverpool Biennial arts festival. I’m not sure I could manage that tonight, I think.
Anti-deportation campaigns: ‘what kind of country do you want this to be?’ | Jennifer Allsopp
Blogs / articles
25 March 2013
Jennifer Allsopp writes for openDemocracy, arguing that the key role of anti-deportation campaigns is to build support for an asylum system that upholds the rights of all
