How Not to Drown Archives - North West End UK

31Mar

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

How Not To Drown – Traverse Theatre

This might not be the best production one sees this calendar year but it’s a shining example of why theatre itself, companies like ThickSkin and venues like The Traverse are so important. Having said that, the village and/or town halls of middle England might benefit from a tour, the front five rows reserved for Daily Mail readers. It’d be nice to think this ninety minutes would prove more nourishing than the three-word-slogan diet they’ve been addicted to for the last seven years. For amongst the complexities of what constitutes home or how essential the family is, the key message here is that conditions and circumstances exist in some countries of which plenty have no concept. It explains, at the very end, why Dritan’s father took the shocking decision to send his 11-year-old son on a h...

How Not To Drown – Oldham Coliseum

'STOP THE BOATS’ is an easy phrase parrotted by politicians seeking the quick dopamine rush of an approving headline in the Daily Mail or Express. In the rush to demonise immigrants as criminals and scroungers, what is lost is the individual stories of struggle, heartbreak and loss that each one of the statistics actually represents. Writer Dritan Kastrati and ThickSkin Theatre attempt to redress this imbalance in perception, resulting in an authentic voice exploring the journey of one young boy through the asylum and care system in 21st century Britain. Dritan Kastrati was an 11-year-old Kosovan Albanian, when his parents made the decision to remove him from the chaotic aftermath of the Balkan war and send him to the supposed safety and security of the UK. Kasrati told his story to Ni...

Award-Winning play How Not to Drown comes to Oldham Coliseum

The award-winning Manchester based theatre company ThickSkin returns to the city for the Oldham dates of performer Dritan Kastrati’s real-life story. Set in 2002 at the end of the Kosovan War, this impactful andcompelling play follows Dritan as an 11-year-old who was sent on the notoriously perilous journey across the Adriatic accompanied by a gang of people smugglers to a new life in Europe. Relying on young wit and charm on his journey to the UK, Dritan’s fight for survival continues when he finds himself caught within the British care system, struggling to cling onto his identity and sense of self. Dritan plays himself at various points in the play which has been co-written with playwright Nicola McCartney, who is herself a foster carer, following 60 hours of recorded interviews bet...