Rwanda’s Oliver Twist tells his refugee story
Photo: Tom Gilligan
Daniel Nelson
Oliver Twist is the writer and performer of Jali at the Soho Theatre — but he doesn’t want to reveal too much about the production.
Even his name. For certain, it’s not a Rwandan name, even though he was born there and his Tutsi mother and Hutu father parents got him out of the country when he 1994 genocide erupted.
“It’s not my birth name or my parents weren’t avid readers of Charles [Dickens] himself,” he says before a rehearsal.
All he will admit that “The Dickensian connection Is something I talk about in the show.”
He is equally reticent about the contents of his one-man one-hour show. Yes, it touches on themes of migration “and a bit of racism here and there”. How could it not when he spent 14 years in a refugee camp before the family secured a home in Australia?
“It’s an honest account of a boy getting to feel at home in a place that's not very homely,” is his unrevealing reveal. “It is autobiographical in that it’s about my lived experience, but memory is always unreliable.”
He simply wants people to come to the theatre and experience it for themselves.
It’s split into 11 scenes, “to take you on a journey that leaves you disoriented. The feeling i was trying to get is of always being on the run.”
It’s likely to be funny, too, because after leaving school at 18 she became a comedian.
Though it’s been performed many times in Australia, his mother has never seen it: ”It’s very confessional and she is not a confessional person.”
In addition, her experience of the genocide separated her from her sisters and family, many family and family were killed, and she has never been back: “She’s still on edge, politically, about the country.”
His three sisters — one born in Rwanda, two in Malawi — haven’t seen it either, though they have seen parts of it when he tried out excerpts in other stage routines.
He himself returned to Rwanda for the first time only a year ago, where he met members of his extended family, and was struck by the beauty of the country. He’d love to take the show there, but doesn’t see it happening anytime soon.
It’s odd to realise London audiences will see it before his family does.
It will be playing in Refugee Week, where he is billed as ”a charismatic comedian and performer refusing to be defined by his turbulent past … Using personal anecdotes, drama and humour as a powerful antidote to trauma, Jali is a vibrant and emotional journey that patiently proves there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
Jali - by Oliver Twist, written and performed by Oliver Twist, who tells of his experience as a refugee (Rwanda, Malawi, Australia) and delves into his current life, £12, Soho Theatre, Dean Street, W1 until 24 June. Info: www.sohotheatre.com