Following their critically acclaimed productions of Noughts & Crosses and Crongton Knights, Pilot Theatre are set to return to Theatre Peckham with the world premiere of award-winning Australian playwright S. Shakthidharan’s adaptation of The Bone Sparrow, Zana Fraillon’s beautiful, vivid, and deeply moving story for young adults about a Rohingya refugee boy who has spent his entire life living in a detention centre in Australia.
Directed by Pilot Theatre’s Artistic Director Esther Richardson (Noughts & Crosses and Brighton Rock), the new production will be at Theatre Peckham from Thursday 7 – Saturday 23 April.
Subhi is a refugee. Born in an Australian permanent detention centre after his mother fled the violence of a distant homeland, life behind the fences is all he has ever known. But as he grows, his imagination gets bigger too, until it is bursting at the limits of his world.
One night, Jimmie, a scruffy, impatient girl appears from the other side of the wires, and brings a notebook written by the mother she lost. Unable to read it, she relies on Subhi to unravel her own family’s mysterious and moving history.
Subhi and Jimmie might both find a way to freedom, as their tales unfold. But not until each of them has been braver than ever before.
The Bone Sparrow cast features Yaamin Chowdhury (Let Kilburn Shake, Kiln Theatre and soon to be seen in Apple TV’s The Essex Serpent alongside Tom Hiddleston and Claire Danes and Sky’s upcoming action-drama Extinction) as Subhi; Mary Roubos (Separate Doors, Chichester Festival Theatre and The Tempest, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre) as Jimmie. Elmi Rashid Elmi (Dune, Warner Brothers and soon to be seen in The Swimmers by Jack Thorne and onstage in the award-winning Barber Shop Chronicles, Fuel and National Theatre) as Eli; Jum Faruq (Five Little Christmas Monkeys, Baby Panda in association with Park Theatre) as Duck; Kiran L Dadlani (Ackley Bridge, Channel 4; Coronation Street and Cold Feet, ITV) as Maa; Siobhan Athwal (Wasted, Southwark Playhouse; Bend it Like Beckham, Phoenix Theatre and Viva Forever, Piccadilly Theatre) as Queenie; Devesh Kishore (Guards at The Taj ,Theatre by the Lake and Gangsta Granny, Birmingham Stage) as Harvey/ Ba/ Nasir and Mackenzie Scott (Michael Morpurgo’s King’s Arthur, Edinburgh Fringe Festival) as Beaver.
Theatre Peckham, 221 Havil Street, London, SE5 7SB from 7th – 23rd April. Admission: £16, £12.
Booking: https://www.theatrepeckham.co.uk/show/the-bone-sparrow/ or 020 7708 5401.