Lenny Henry. Photo by Tristram Kenton.

August in England by Lenny Henry – Bush Theatre, London

August in England is Sir Lenny Henry’s first play, a one man show which he also performs. As August Henderson, who arrived in London from Jamaica with his mother at the age of eight, he has no difficulty winning the audience over. It’s no surprise that Henry is a charismatic performer, but keeping an audience engaged and entertained for 90 minutes is not easy. To be debuting as a writer/performer at the age of 64 marks an impressive next chapter in a career that continues to fascinate. He just keeps on getting better. The story he tells, of a life threatened by the Windrush scandal, in which the Government’s ‘hostile environment’ policy deported and attempted to deport hundreds of Commonwealth citizens who had lived in the UK for decades. August is a victim, receiving demands from Capita to demonstrate his citizenship, setting impossible levels of proof, and finally being wrestled to the ground on his doorstep by immigration enforcement officers.

This part of the story comes at the very end. The majority of the play is August’s life story, growing up in the Black Country as Henry himself did. His story is funny and engaging, and Henry communicates powerfully with the audience, many of whom clearly recognise his descriptions of Caribbean family life in Britain in the 1960s and 70s. Henry is funny, and the play includes a significant amount of punchline-based material. Every anecdote is rounded off with a joke. These, while amusing, at times undermine the urgent underlying drama, especially during the denouement when August’s arrest involves an exploding shed, an uncomfortable injection of farce just as the play reaches its emotional peak. The Windrush events are also relegated to the very end of the evening. While we have great sympathy with August by that point, knowing his full life story, the balance does not seem quite right.

However, August in England is a high quality entertainment that also packs an emotional punch. August’s personal travails are raw and entirely believable, and when Henry finally breaks down it is truly upsetting. Co-directors Lynette Linton and Daniel Bailey end the show with a series of short video interviews with real Windrush victims, which opens the show up, taking it beyond social history and showing us the brutal and disgraceful reality. The ‘hostile environment’ continues to shame the UK, and Henry plays an important part in revealing the human cost of inhuman government policy.