World premiere of The Scar Test – a snapshot of life inside the infamous Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre
By acclaimed writer Hannah Khalil
On Tour 21 June – 22 July 2017. Press night at Soho Theatre on 6th July
Untold Arts presents the world premiere of The Scar Test, a new play by Soho Theatre Westminster Prize award-winning writer Hannah Khalil, which opens on 21 June during Refugee Week 2017 and offers a powerful and disturbing snapshot of life inside the infamous Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre. Based on verbatim interviews and extensive research, The Scar Testdepicts the controversial and unsettling conditions faced by the women detained there, highlighting the urgent, widely unknown reality of immigration control in Britain.
Opening at The Place, Bedford on 21 June 2017, which is situated just seven miles from Yarl’s Wood IRC, The Scar Test tours to STUN in Manchester on 23 June, The Bohemian Balcony in Swindon on 26 and 27 June before transferring to Soho Theatre, London between 5 and 22 July 2017. Directed by Sara Joyce, the cast of The Scar Test includes Janet Etuk, Nadia Nadif, Shazia Nicholls, Rebecca Omogbehin and Lucy Sheen.
Described as a “place of national concern” by the Prisons Watchdog in 2015, Yarl’s Wood is one of 11 similar detention centres around the UK where residents are held awaiting immigration clearance or deportation. A controversial centre that houses women refugees and asylum seekers, many of whom came to the UK fleeing torture and abuse, including sexual violence. The Scar Test tells the fictional stories of 11 female characters held in this disturbing place, where those most in need are kept under lock and key and denied basic human rights. Their lives are regulated, privacy is non-existent and they are offered minimal medical assistance.
Taking its title from a procedure used to determine whether detainees have undergone torture in their home countries (despite the fact not all forms of torture leave external scars), The Scar Test usesphysical theatre, humour and multiple languages to provide a compelling snapshot of daily life at the Centre.
Playwright Hannah Khalil commented: “The first time I visited Yarl’s Wood was in early 2016. It’s very odd, you drive along winding country lanes and then there’s suddenly an industrial estate, like a Premier Inn but behind barbed wire. I don’t think enough people realise that this is happening in the UK, right now and it is not acceptable. On a broader scale I’d hope it’s a stark warning about what can happen if we start to see other people as different or less deserving than we are. That way absolute danger lies as we should know from the past…”
Hannah Khalil’s previous work includes Scenes from 68* Years (Arcola), The Deportation Room andLast of the Pearl Fishers (both BBC Radio 4) and the Meyer-Whitworth Award nominated Plan D(Tristan Bates).
Directed by Sara Joyce who was assistant director on Nice Fish by Mark Rylance & Louis Jenkins and previously Resident Director at Almeida Theatre and Associate Director on King Charles III by Mike Bartlett (UK Tour and Sydney Theatre Company).