This account of one family’s escape from Afghanistan to the UK puts a much-needed human face on the refugee crisis. It’s a simple, almost child-friendly piece of storytelling, adapted by Phil Porter from the autobiographical book by Hamed and Hessam Amiri, who’d never written before.
The titular boy is their late, older sibling Hussein, who was born with a heart condition but became a focal point for the family’s strength. Amit Sharma’s lively, warm but unsubtle production comes to the National from the Wales Millennium Centre: the Amiri family fetched up in Cardiff.
They were already minded to leave Herat in 2000 to seek treatment for Hussein’s debilitating tachycardia. A death sentence on mother Fariba (a sardonic Houda Echouafni) for criticising the Taliban made escape imperative.
Hussein (Ahmad Sakhi) was then 14, quiet and sensible; Hamed (Farshid Rokey) 10, garrulous and temperamental; Hessam (Shamail Ali) only seven. The family sell everything – neighbours kindly buy at inflated prices – and travel through Russia, Armenia, Turkey, Austria, Germany, Holland and France before arriving in England to the sound of Woman’s Hour on a trucker’s radio.
Hayley Grindle’s gantry set is lined with empty clothes, suggesting a legion of displaced persons and rearranges itself to suggest the confined car boots and container voids in which the family stow away. Subtitles and locations are projected on overhead panels.
Singer Elaha Soroor keens over the more tense moments to a tabla-driven score. Every now and again Hussein writhes in a spotlight, under an attack of arrhythmia.
It’s an affecting tale but not entirely bleak. Though repeatedly robbed, intimidated and humiliated on their journey, the Amiris are also supported by friends and family throughout and meet with kindly officials in France and England. Astonishingly, having extorted money from them for a failed crossing, a “handler” (trafficker) decides to go straight, change his ways, and ship them from Sangatte to Britain for free.
There’s no historical context, and the focus is on the family’s unity rather than the external threats: partly because one of the five-strong cast has to step out of their core character to sketch in each opponent before swiftly stepping back.
It’s also very much a boys’ eye view, the saga filtered through sibling squabbles and football kickabouts among the very close “bros”, visions of Fariba’s cooking and eye-rolls over dad Mohammed’s (Dana Haqjoo) terrible jokes.
The last quarter of the play speedily shows the way the boys overcame problems to integrate, the care and kindness shown to Hussein, his success in business and the eventual failure of his heart.
But the ending is upbeat, reflecting with gratitude on an extraordinary journey from Herat to the stage of Britain’s National Theatre, and the extra few years with a loved sibling gained thanks to the NHS. Fair enough. Away from the point-scoring of the political arena, there’s a place for humanity, humour and goodwill in refugee stories, too.
