'Insane Asylum Seekers' review — this remarkably empathetic solo piece deftly tackles immigration, anxiety and family

Read our review of new play Insane Asylum Seekers, starring Tommy Sim’aan, now in performances at the Bush Theatre to 7 June.

Thank heavens for the corrective posed by art. Just as the British government introduces another divisive policy on immigration, along comes Insane Asylum Seekers in the Bush Theatre’s studio space to humanise a sector of society that elsewhere is being sidelined.

The story told is that of the author Laith Elzubaidi, who is played in a remarkable act of empathy by a performer, Tommy Sim’aan, who is himself British-Iraqi-Belgian. So connected is Sim’aan to the material, choking up at more than one point during the 70-minute solo piece, that you could be forgiven for thinking he was the writer as well.

In fact, he is the (superb) conduit for this account of the Anglo-Iraqi author’s growing up in the UK, as told in an informal, loose-limbed style that couples the conversational with the gently cosmic. Those in the front row might find themselves shaking hands with Sim’aan, whilst everyone is on hand for an ending that makes of a crisp packet an equivalent of sorts to the airborne plastic bag fondly remembered from the film American Beauty.

TV screens adorning Liam Bunster’s clever set remind us of the historical backdrop: the decision by Tony Blair and George Bush to carpetbomb Elzubaidi’s home country. That act of aggression, we’re informed, has a precedent as far back as 1914. We get a quick primer on Saddam Hussein, but any suggestion of a history lesson is quickly undercut by the prevailing good humour – all credit to the levity of tone established by the director, Emily Ling Williams.

And so we hear of the author’s growing up in Wembley. There’s talk of his sweet-sounding, fretful mother, keen that her son knows the whereabouts at all times of his passport, and of a father who suffers a heart attack that gets vividly recreated onstage.

The playwright recalls his younger self falling in love for the first time – an experience compared to “mental illness” – and a fateful first dinner with his girlfriend’s parents which, shall we say, doesn’t quite go to plan. (The show is blunt to a fault about the male anatomy.)

A return home to Iraq during the brief window when such a trip was even possible brings surprises of its own – the luxury of his family’s living conditions there compared to the modest north-west London surrounds of his own upbringing.

Throughout it all, anxiety courses as a constant, manifesting itself in different ways. His parents are described doing battle with varying degrees of PTSD, while Elzubaidi’s own coping mechanism has been to succumb to an unusual variant of OCD: a therapist is heard more than once proffering a salutary way forward.

The show isn’t afraid to generate a raised eyebrow: the former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright is singled out as ripe for extinction at the start, and Alastair Campbell, a key figure in the 2003 Iraq Dossier, doesn’t fare much better.

But name-calling isn’t the point of a capaciously hearted show which dares to consider the way in which horror can, with luck, be transmuted into hope. I was put in mind more than once of Anoushka Lucas’s monologue, Elephant, which began its ongoing journey at this same venue late in 2022. The trajectory of Insane Asylum Seekers, one feels as with that earlier show, has only just begun.

Insane Asylum Seekers is at the Bush Theatre to 7 June. Book Insane Asylum Seekers tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk.

Photo credit: Insane Asylum Seekers (Photos by Alex Powell)