December 2019
The Special Relationship: Soho Theatre
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”.
THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP by Hassan Abdulrazzak.
Directed by Esther Baker.
SOHO THEATRE
26th February – 14th March 2019.
True stories from the sharp edge of transatlantic deportation.
A grain of cocaine, a digit on a breathalyser, a forged cheque, a DEA sting or Murder One?
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 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.
The Special Relationship was researched in collaboration with Prisoners Abroad, a UK charity supporting British citizens imprisoned overseas and returning to the UK.
