Maria Who? Theatre Company bring, for a strictly limited season, their award-winning exploration of personal and national identity, Miss Brexit to Omnibus Theatre 11th-15th Feb 2025. Created by a group of migrant performers living in London, this fearlessly frank work blends satire and autobiography and has already won both the Danail Chirpansky New Work Award and the Festival Director’s Award at the SETKÁNÍ Theatre Festival. We sat down with director Alejandro Postigo to find out more.
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Alejandro, Miss Brexit blends satire with autobiography in a powerful way. What inspired you to approach the migrant experience in Britain through satire, and what impact do you hope this has on audiences?
In my life, I tend to face challenges with humour. I find laughter is one the most powerful tools we humans have, something with the potential to bring us together, to unify people. If we can make people laugh, we might be able to make people listen, or reflect. There is much absurdity in the whole Brexit idea, it’s had terrible consequences so far, and the worst is probably still to come. We live in a polarised society that is constantly fed news and opinions through the immediacy of social media. Our attention span becomes shorter and is often biased. In the show, we want audiences to get to know some of our migrant stories, and the best way I can think of to create empathy is to make people laugh.
The show addresses the erasure of identity to fit into an “Anglocentric world.” Could you share more about the process of exploring these themes with your cast, many of whom bring their own migrant experiences to the production?
All actors and creatives in the show share a migrant background. We have been living in England for different amounts of time. London’s society is quite multicultural, yet there is a prevalence of Anglo culture that goes beyond the UK and North America and permeates our different countries and cultures to various extents. This is the effect of globalization. Even before Brexit, the alleged openness of British society was somehow dependant on our ability as migrants to embrace Anglo culture. This show is born from the desire to speak from a place of otherness, a commonplace that migrants share when made to jump hoops to fit into the global Anglo vision of the world. When making the show, we have shared our experiences and dramatized those that we thought were worth sharing. The show is autobiographic in that it originates from our lived experiences, from our expectations of the UK and our imposed exotism as migrants.
Miss Brexit invites audiences to meet “real people dealing with the consequences of Brexit.” How does the interactive element shape the performance, and what have been some memorable reactions from audiences?
The show is set up as a beauty pageant where contestants compete for a crown that symbolises a British settled status. Those migrant contestants who lose must return to their countries of origin. The situation of our cast and their migrant friends is often not dissimilar (minus the competition side of it, that reflects today’s obsession with TV reality culture). I personally know migrant friends that have returned to their countries as opportunities in the UK were not available anymore, or others that are no longer able to migrate to the UK. Our audience gets to witness this in real time. What happens when a contestant they vouch for is eliminated and needs to leave the show and consequently, the UK? Oftentimes, British audiences are not faced with this predicament, but they are in this show. The rules of Miss Brexit can be as harsh as Brexit policy itself, and audiences tend to have quite visceral reactions. Before coming to the UK, the show has been tested as a work in progress in various European countries, and I think responses in Europe can also be stronger as European audiences are not apologetic in expressing their deep disgust against Brexit.
How did the three-week devising and improvisation process help you and the cast uncover the stories and perspectives that ultimately shaped Miss Brexit?
During the devising process, a lot of material was generated and then we entered an editing process where we had to make decisions to try and best represent our experiences in an entertaining way. We play a lot with stereotypes of our own cultures, exploring how we are seen, but also our own stereotypical views of Britain. Yet our experiences keep expanding and the show keeps developing as our lives do too. No two shows are the same as no two outcomes are the same. We give audiences the power to choose their favourite Miss Brexit, as a metaphor of what happens to us migrants when politicians make decisions that shape our lives and leave us no agency.
Given the complexity and personal nature of the themes in Miss Brexit, what has been the most challenging and the most rewarding part of bringing this production to life in the current post-Brexit climate?
Having a platform to express ourselves is very powerful, especially in a climate where minorities and dissident voices are often silenced. I think it would be fair to say audiences do not remain indifferent after experiencing the show. We often hear it is hard or revealing to find out what Brexit really means for migrants. And the most rewarding part is to make the audience realise this through laughter. People seem to have a great night out, but they go home thinking, and we can’t but be proud to have contributed somehow to raising some awareness towards migration and cultural dynamics, while doing something we really love, which is live performance.