Mugabe, My Dad and Me review – a personal lesson on empire and identity

York Theatre Royal
Tonderai Munyevu reflects on the men who have loomed large in his life in a thought-provoking show

Where are you from?" It's a question that writer and actor Tonderai Munyevu gets a lot. In the opening moments of Mugabe, My Dad and Me, he recalls it being asked by a white man he was serving in a bar, who went on to offer strong, ill-informed opinions about Munyevu's native Zimbabwe. This show is Munyevu's response.

As the title suggests, it revolves around two men who have loomed large in Munyevu's life, each shaped by Zimbabwe's violent colonial history: controversial former president Robert Mugabe, and Munyevu's heavy-drinking, often absent father. He traces the outlines of their lives both before and after Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, interspersed with his own experience as a member of the diaspora, having moved to the UK as a child. It's an ambitious piece, tackling colonialism, neo-colonialism and different understandings of land, ownership and belonging.