The Special Relationship photo on Stagedoor

The Special Relationship Tickets

Star icon  (1)  

A grain of cocaine, a digit on a breathalyser, a forged cheque, a DEA sting or murder one?

Show Ended

Date & Time

Show ended

Wed 26 Feb - Sat 21 Mar, 2.30pm & 7pm

Recommended By

Deportation is much in the news at the moment as those whose families originally came from the Caribbean and who have fallen foul of the criminal justice system find themselves being deported after they have finished their sentences. That is very much the model in the US where foreign nationals, some of them from the UK, are deported on release. Developed from interviews with ex-prisoners and immigration lawyers, this play by Hassan Abdulrazzak, who wrote Baghdad Wedding and The Prophet, looks at those who find themselves punished twice over.

About The Special Relationship

"Yes I was deported back. Old Trump sent me here. Anything happens to my family, I'm coming across that ocean if I got to come in a tugboat, singing, row, row, row your boat." In America, foreign nationals can be deported after serving prison sentences. Some of them are British. Caught in the transatlantic tango between Trump and May and proudly presented by a gun-toting Immigration officer, these are their verbatim stories of double punishment and separation from their loved ones. Hassan Abdulrazzak interviewed ex-prisoners and experts in immigration and criminal law to get behind the political rhetoric and explore the extraordinary realities of people caught up in the quagmire of immigration detention and deportation. Synergy Theatre Project creates ground-breaking work across theatre and the justice system. Our work includes new plays which are specially commissioned to humanise the stories of those we work with – prisoners, ex-prisoners and young people at risk of offending and to provide new insights into the criminal justice system. The Special Relationship was researched in collaboration with Prisoners Abroad, a UK charity supporting British citizens imprisoned overseas and returning to the UK. Age Recommendation: 16+