Monologues Season - Bridge Theatre

From the front row, the great thing for me was seeing six wonderful actors from 8'-10' away, on a low stage. It was literally like watching them from an armchair in your living room

I hadn't seen the updated BBC versions of the talking heads and last watched the originals decades ago at school but I watched Nights in the Gardens of Spain and the beginning of Miss Fozzard last night and was really surprised at how different the performances were on screen as opposed to in the theatre. I was also impressed at how Tamsin Greig managed to be just as, if not more, quietly emotional in a large theatre compared to being completely alone on screen. It was funnier in the theatre too and much sadder on tv. I'm only a little bit of the way Miss Fozzard but so far the performance is completely different even down to the accent and much more subdued.

For me this was the core of the piece, an immigrant is perceived as an alien with their humanity removed and whilst in the approval process has neither a past they could return to or a firm future to look forward to, just an existence in stasis made up of endless days of not belonging and the powerlessness this entails.

There was enough to understand why he had to leave whilst the narrative showed the decision to seek asylum leads to ‘nationless’, unable to go back and no foundation to go forward, claiming asylum is not the easy option it is often portrayed.

He is! I read about An Evening with an Immigrant after I'd seen The Barber Shop Chronicles as part of NT at Home, which was an absolute theatre-crush for me (I think I watched it like 3 times in 2 days - it literally haunted me) and I've wanted to see it since, so I was thrilled to see that the Bridge decided to bring it back! It definitely did not disappoint. He really has a particular talent for storytelling, which manages to be both light and humorous, clever and insightful, and it is such an honest telling of his story that it's easy to find something to connect with. 
(I also recently attended the launch of his new book of poetry over Zoom and very much enjoyed it, even though I'm not really a big fan of poetry in general. My favourite part of the evening, though, was when Ellams noted, after Sule Rimi had read a poem, that he is working on a new play with a part specifically for Sule. That is something to look forward to!)

I agree with this - I left the Bridge rather disappointed tonight too.

While I had no issue with the lack of any actual staging (it's simpler during this strange period of mixed monologues, and cheaper for them I guess, and thus fine by me), I felt let down by the text: it was somewhat superficial and just somehow... hollow. I expected to see (and feel) a genuine human story, and it actually felt quite generic and calculated in a catch all/trying-hard-to-be-likeable kind of way (i.e. in the kind of way that Hollywood films based on a tragic true story often are, to make it more palatable to a wider audience, e.g. in some moments it felt like it was trying too hard to be funny, drifting into unnecessary details of random sub-stories just for laughs, at other times it felt too banal).

I didn't feel like it gave me enough to go on to actually care much for the character: he felt overwhelmingly like a shell filled with bits and pieces of that what is (I presume) meant to be the opposite to the negative expectations and stereotypes about asylum seekers/immigrants, rather than like a real, complex human being - we never really scratched deeper underneath the surface. I also didn't much appreciate the author's decision to directly employ the some of us voice, rather than just a singular, personal one: it somehow made the already thin character seem even thinner and less important. (Perhaps it made it less clear whose story it is?) I also prefer it when authors give me something to think about rather than just tell me everything directly, plus some of it felt really cliche and unnecessary. By wanting to provide as many counterarguments against common prejudice as possible, Nyoni effectively alienated me as an audience member from her character (and quite ironically so, given the subject matter of the play).

I thought the actor was OK (it's Lladel Bryant, btw, not the author), but he didn't have too much to work with from my perspective. 

The whole thing fades particularly in comparison to An Evening with an Immigrant which so effortlessly manages to be everything that this seems to want to be but isn't: a genuine, heartfelt story about the alienating reality of being the other. 

TL;DR: I didn't like this all that much, and the more I think about it the more I am wondering why Bridge chose to stage it because I really don't think it's a particularly good text. (I might be tired and too critical, though. Perhaps I should have slept on this before saying anything...)

londonpostie, I couldn't agree more: there's not much that even the best actor can do to disguise a mediocre monologue, and sadly, for me, this belongs to that category. Then again, it's work for those who need it right now, and it's a chance to go back to the theatre for the rest of us, so I'm happy it's there. I am also really impressed by everything the Bridge has done to get the audiences back and, much like you, am looking forward to finding out what they will put on next.

Also, looking forward to reading your thoughts on Beat the Devil! (I haven't seen it, sadly couldn't get a solo ticket for any of the dates available.)