Powell-Jones here directs a phenomenal cast in communicating an urgent message for our times, by relaying the incredible experiences of one young man.
Little Brother charts the extraordinary modern odyssey of Ibrahima Balde, who travelled the immense distance from his village in Guinea across the African continent to Europe in pursuit of his younger sibling. After making his way to Irun in the Basque country in 2018, Ibrahima met the renowned writer, journalist and poet Amets Arzallus Antia, belonging at the time to a small group of volunteers who supported newly arrived migrants. Over ten months, Ibrahima and Amets searched for the words to tell Ibrahima’s story, publishing a bestselling book in 2019. It has since been translated into ten languages, and won the Silver Euskadi Award in 2020. Copies of Little Brother (Miñan) were given by the late Pope Francis to his bishops and recommended to the wider public, and in December 2023 Ibrahima and Amets were invited to a private meeting with him.
The playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker was compelled to translate the book into English, adapting it for the stage in the form of the play currently showing at Jerwyn Street Theatre until the 21st June, in its inaugural run of performances. Artistic Director of Jerwyn Street Stella Powell-Jones knew the intimate space would work well in bringing the audience up close to Ibrahima’s monumental journey, making a name for itself as the West End’s Studio Theatre. Powell-Jones here directs a phenomenal cast in communicating an urgent message for our times, by relaying the incredible experiences of one young man.
Each of the cast give exceptional performances, with warmth, humour and depth of feeling brought to their multiple characterisations. The production is staged with expert brushstrokes – thoughtful costume, lighting and staging choices work to simply enhance our immersion, without ever detracting from Ibrahima’s story. The 70-seat space indeed does justice to the play’s utmostly personal insight into Ibrahima’s life – it is small enough for Blair Gyabaah, who portrays Ibrahima with poise and skill, to frequently arrest your gaze with his. The human element of this particular migration story is rendered unignorable, a person who would otherwise be lost in a sea of statistics and sensationalist headlines brought to urgent, life-size reality through the events that unfold throughout the hour-long production. It resists the distancing, coolly familiarising effect of daily media reporting at every turn, and in doing so Ibrahima’s trials while crossing the Sahara, Mediterranean, and punishing wall of bureaucracy he is met with on the other side become newly shocking and impermissible.
By instead familiarising the audience with Ibrahima’s personality, his family, and the monstrous obstacles thrown in his way, the dominant narrative of Western countries whose borders are becoming harder, and attitudes towards those who try to cross them harsher, is disrupted. Ibrahima did not want, and did not plan to cross the Sahara and arrive in Europe; regardless, this is besides the point. The play will get further away from you, Youness Bouzinab, who plays Amets, tells us at its close, but you are here, now, and so are the Ibrahimas of this world – ‘every day Ibrahima arrives in Irun, or crosses another sea and arrives here, walking our streets, past us, silent.’ He urges us to hold onto that connection, the familiarity with Balde’s memoir, the outrage at the Home Office’s initial refusal to allow Balde to travel to the UK from Madrid, where he works as an auto mechanic, to watch the production’s opening night. I urge you to see this powerful piece of theatre, and to hold tightly onto it.