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‘Eye of a Needle’ starts on a deceptively light note, with a Ugandan asylum seeker enthusiastically but unconvincingly rattling off a hilariously detailed list of gay sex acts – including ‘the rusty trombone’ – to amused newbie UKBA caseworker, Laurence, to prove why his application should be accepted. But Chris MacDonald quickly and deftly cuts our laughter short in his accomplished full-length debut play.
That first scene reverberates through a series of counterpoints and encounters between characters in director Holly Race-Roughan’s edgily paced production. Ripped from current headlines and drawing on the stories of various asylum applicants from sources like gay rights charity Stonewall, this is a coruscating broadside aimed at the cruel absurdity of Britain’s Kafkaesque asylum process and its demands for proof of sexual orientation.
The play pivots on Laurence’s increasingly desperate struggle to keep Ugandan gay rights activist Natale in the UK. Having fled her home following a friend’s murder, she is claiming asylum as a lesbian. But is she telling the truth? Ted, Laurence’s boss, is suspicious, Natale is keeping a blog of her experiences and a documentary-maker is looking for her next exposé.
MacDonald’s writing pulses with bitter humour as he attacks the cynicism of a beleaguered system where exclusion has become the priority. Rushing around a bleakly sparse and grubby set, Nic Jackman’s Laurence, bewildered and out-manoeuvred, can only watch as Natale (a fiery and excellent Ony Uhiara) is chewed up and spat out again.
The play insightfully explores every grim angle of its awful situation and the extremes it forces people to go to. And there’s intelligent comment on the insidious tokenism of headline-friendly crusades: Solicitor Caroline’s willingness to take on a disgusted Natale’s appeal pro bono basically because ‘her face fits’ is quietly damning.
The only misfire is Ted, a character who swings awkwardly between inexplicable malice and wearily over-worked. He’s a jarring presence in what is otherwise a sharp and thought-provoking production.