What are the themes of your play?
Hummingbird is about belonging, identity and grief. The play explores the complexities of British identity and the ways in which migrant communities carve a place within them through love and loss.
Hummingbird is a love letter to the people we love and places we belong; to the ancestors who carved paths for us and to the legacy in each and every breath we take on their behalf.
Why did you write it and why now?
I have always grappled with my place in Britain, in a very present and constant way. It’s when I began writing that I found an outlet to explore this lived experience further. I also spent lockdown interviewing my grandmother on her lived experiences moving from Jamaica to the UK.
Hummingbird is an ode to both of these lived experiences, and an urgent exploration, affirmation, and celebration of belonging.
Which playwrights are you influenced by and why?
So many! I love the distinctive styles of Inua Ellams, Yomi Sode and Martin Crimp.
I love the sharp dynamism in Arinze Kene’s Misty, the surrealism in Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop and the raw social realism across debbie tucker green’s work.
In Hummingbird, I’ve blended dub-poetry and naturalism, so I have to mention Louise Bennett (Miss Lou), Linton Kwesi Johnson and Benjamin Zephaniah – who hugely influenced my interest into the cadence and style of dub-poetry.
What do you hope to achieve as a playwright?
I hope to create a legacy of work that is urgent, truthful and bold; writing thatchallenges audience perspectives and stays with them beyond the final curtain. Work that stirs debate and holds a mirror up to the world we live in.
I hope for my communities and beyond to feel represented on stage. But ultimately, I simply hope to make audiences feel connection – to the writing, to themselves and to each other.