from Shadow Syndicate

Powerful, provocative and acutely relevant, Fugee highlights injustices faced by child refugees arriving in the UK, and the failings of those supposed to take care of them. The multi-award-winning company present a contemporary, hard-hitting play, blending fiction with verified facts and painful honesty, to expose the plight of vulnerable individuals.

Gritty, impactful and prescient; Fugee is slang for Refugee.  The play tells the story of Kojo, who is 14, but no one believes him; he’s just one of the many unaccompanied minors arriving in our country, abandoned on the streets of the United Kingdom.  When fourteen year old Kojo tumbles into the UK system, with no official papers, and no words in English, he is housed in a refuge for under-age asylum seekers.  The system judging him is understaffed, overwhelmed by statistics and shows a distinct lack of compassion for the human condition.  Instead of a future, Kojo is fated to be exposed to dangers no minor should be. 

With new friends Cheung and Ara by his side, he embarks on the struggle to prove himself to the authorities.  As he does so, he begins to reconcile his past and find pleasure in the present.  Orphans in London, they are the only family they have now. Together they tell Kojo’s story: a story of lost childhood, tall trees and a murder in motion; a murder by a child that everyone says is a man.

Didactic in nature and flashing forwards and backwards, this contemporary play blends fiction with verified facts. Commenting with painful honesty on decisions made by a social system charged with protecting the lives of these vulnerable individuals, Fugee gives names and faces to those who would simply be numbers and statistics.  Politically and emotionally charged, audiences will feel how anger and happiness collide with poignancy in this arresting and empathetic narrative.

In light of the most recent announcements concerning refugees and those seeking asylum, the play feels even more relevant than it did when it was written in 2008, indicating an uncomfortable truth about successive government agendas on this matter