Hamzeh Al Hussien Archives - North West End UK

Opening this year’s Liverpool’s Arab Arts Festival, Penguin is a timely piece which connects strongly with the recent Refugee Week – the UK-wide celebration of arts, culture, and community – as it tells the story of one man’s extraordinary journey from a village in the Syrian mountains to a new life in the North-East of England. Directed with a suitably light touch by Amy Goulding, the wonderfully charismatic Hamzeh Al Hussien relays his life in just over an hour with a combination of music and physical theatre and liberal doses of humour throughout. Performed predominantly in English, there is some Arabic with surtitles provided in both languages. Jida Akil’s staging and costume design is rightfully kept simple with an array of clothes rails to the rear allowing Hamzeh to seamle...

Given how posh the arts are these days many performers easily graduate from public school to the stage, but Syrian artist Hamzeh Al Hussien took a very different route. His family were displaced during the brutal Syrian civil war meant he spent six years in a refugee camp before this disability made him a priority for resettlement in the UK, and he came with his brother to the North East In his new show Penguin aided by some simple props in the rehearsal room, he conjures a vision of an idyllic village in Syria, a place with a backdrop of mountains, a river and a waterfall, and with caves. There are orchards where as a young boy he once stole lemons, and was shamed by his brother into giving them back. It’s also a place he lived with his parents, two brothers and three sisters, a...

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Penguin – Unity Theatre

Syrian artist Hamzeh Al Hussien brings his journey as a refugee to Leeds Playhouse