Nine Lives and Come To Where I'm From

NINE LIVES

See over here it's not like over there. Here there are neon lights. Here there are queens. Here there are rainbow flags draw high.

One man and a suitcase filled with the past, uncertainty, high heels, brokenness, African dancing shells and hope.

Ishmael has been outed, along with his lover, David. He has sought sanctuary in the UK, but is this evidence enough? As Ishmael waits to hear his fate, he encounters new friends – and enemies, all the while looking for a place to call home again. Zodwa Nyoni threads together humour and humanity to tell the real personal story behind asylum headlines.

Nine Lives was developed as part of the West Yorkshire Playhouse's A Play, A Pie and A Pint programme in 2014 and received a UK national tour in 2015.

COME TO WHERE I'M FROM

Tongue-tied child got lost in migration. Tongue-tied child got lost in separation. Tongue-tied child got lost in assimilation.

Theatre company Paines Plough's Come To Where I'm From programme offers a theatrical tapestry of the UK, woven by writers asking if home really is where the heart is. Since 2010, 88 playwrights from across the UK have returned to their home towns to write plays about the places that shaped them. This publication features Zodwa Nyoni's 2013 monologue for the series - a meditation on place, belonging and the author's Zimbabwean roots.

“A blazing new drama about people on the margins of a failing society. Zodwa Nyoni's Nine Lives tells the story of Ishmael, a Zimbabwean asylum-seeker who has fled to Britain because he is gay, one of millions of victims of the new wave of extreme homophobia sweeping some African countries. In a fine 50-minute monologue . . . we watch Ishmael struggle with Britain's intrusive and hostile immigration system, catch a brief glimpse of sexual freedom, and form a fragile but hopeful friendship with a young single mum he meets in the park. Nyoni's interweaving of naturalism and poetry is superb, and lifts this show far beyond documentary, into unforgettable solo drama about one of the key experiences of our time.” —Scotsman

“The device of revealing a life as refracted through the memories of mourners, whose characters are simultaneously revealed through their interactions, can be a cliche . . . Zodwa Nyoni exploits it with sprightly ease and emotional depth. Like another playwright and poet, JM Synge, she grippingly connects a particular situation to the universals of shared experiences through a wonderfully rich, humorous and densely poetic use of language.” —Guardian on "Boi Boi is Dead"

“Gripping, humorous, poetic” —Oberver on "Boi Boi is Dead"