UK tour of Tonderai Munyevu’s Mugabe, My Dad & Me announced

English Touring Theatre has announce a UK tour of Tonderai Munyevu’s Mugabe, My Dad & Me for 2022.

Co-produced with Brixton House and York Theatre Royal in association with Alison Holder, the upcoming tour follows a successful run at York Theatre Royal earlier this year.

Directed by John R. Wilkinson and performed by Munyevu and Millicent Chapanda, the autobiographical play is about growing up in 1980’s Zimbabwe following independence.

The tour opens at Brixton House on 17 February, with previews from 15 February, and runs until 6 March. It then tours to Scarborough, Oundle and Oxford before concluding in Edinburgh, 23 – 26 March 2022.

Tonderai Munyevu was born in 1982 Zimbabwe, what they call the “born frees” – one of the generation born in the 1980s after independence.

He tells us how the first cracks of prosperous Zimbabwe’s decline began to appear in the 1990s, and how he emigrated with his mother to England, where he has since remained. How his father lost his job at the hands of a white man, and how this changed both their lives irrevocably, until his father’s death prompted Tonderai to question his identity and what it means to return ‘home’.

Interspersing his dialogue with the audience are Robert Mugabe’s speeches: ranging from the 1980s figure in a Savile Row suit to the bitter and derisive missives from the 1990s, up until 2017 when Mugabe was ousted by a political coup.

The production is designed by Nicolai Hart-Hansen with sound designer and composer Nigel Glasgow.

Richard Twyman, Artistic Director, and Sophie Scull, Executive Producer of ETT, said: “Following a run in 2021 with our partners York Theatre Royal and Alison Holder, we are delighted that in 2022 Mugabe, My Dad & Me will open with our new partners Brixton House before touring.

“Tonderai has written a deeply personal and engaging story, and spearheads an exceptional group of artists alongside John and Millicent. We’re so pleased that audiences in Brixton and across the UK will be able to see this profoundly moving show.”