culture
Steve Water’s latest play brings corruption and complicity to the Crucible Words: Robyn Hewson This fall, the world premiere of electrifying thriller The Last King of Scotland is coming to Sheffield. Adapted from the book by Giles Foden, the story takes place in 1970s Uganda where Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan (Game of Throne’s Daniel Portman) becomes entangled in the country’s complicated and often brutal regime. Drawn into the inner workings of Uganda, Garrigan ends up as a personal physician to the dictator Idi Amin. I sat in on the rehearsals to watch how the action would be brought to life on the stage. The scene I watched, involving a variety of journalists reporting on the new Ugandan leader, was intended to give a sense of space and time to the play. The room was an electric mix of col82 | www.exposedmagazine.co.uk
our, movement and sounds as the movement director Kane Husbands shaped the scene into something coordinated and tangible. It was interesting to see how the cast interacted with one another, particularly with the character of Garrigan, who begins as an outsider unfamiliar with the country’s cultural and political workings. We later caught up with Daniel Portman to talk about the complexities of his character and how the story remains relevant to audiences today. What has the rehearsal process been like so far? There’s been a lot of textual analysis and dissection of the piece as a group which was a new experience to me. I’ve never done that in a the-
atre setting before so that was a real learning curve and it’s been great. Through doing that, you build a bit of a team energy and morale as a unit. It’s such an ensemble piece. We started getting on our feet yesterday and it feels like the ground work that we did in the last couple of weeks will really pay off. It’s difficult to know until you get on your feet and you’re doing it. Everyone has lots of thoughts and people are willing to take risks and I’m very excited, so I feel really lucky to be here. How will the stage adaption be different to the book and film versions? They all tell the same story but from different perspectives. The book is very much the story of a man documenting a situation, but the film, to me, is a man being swept up in a situation and this version of the character is an opportunist, he chooses to take this path and I think complicity is one of the main themes of the play. There are a lot of questions to be asked and things to think about in the stage adaption: race politics and social politics, geographical situations and the rise of totalitarian dictators in our politics, even in this country with our prime minister… if he could be Idi Amin Dada, Boris Johnson probably would be. And obviously Trump. I think there’s an opportunity in this for the mirror to be held up, especially with the British influence in Uganda and being instrumental in things that happened. How would you describe the relationship between your character, Dr Garrigan, and Idi Amin Dada in the play? Garrigan begins with a romantic, idealised view of Uganda, and of the leader. Amin comes out and makes a speech and Garrigan sees him almost as a rock star, he idolises him. That’s