{UAH} The Last Queen of Scotland review at Underbelly, Edinburgh – ‘exuberant yet thoughtful’
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The Last Queen of Scotland review at Underbelly, Edinburgh – 'exuberant yet thoughtful'
Youthful vigour and anger run through Rehanna MacDonald's exuberant yet thoughtful performance of Jaimini Jethwa's monologue. It draws on Jethwa's childhood in a Ugandan-Asian family, expelled by Idi Amin in 1972. The family was resettled in a poverty-stricken scheme in Dundee, which is revealed as Jethwa tries to make sense of her heritage as a young adult.
In a Fringe containing a surfeit of life histories as drama, Jethwa goes deeper than autobiography. She examines her relationships with Amin – who said he loved Scotland and called himself its last king – and with her birth place in Uganda.
The Ugandan-Asian experience is a hugely complex one, symbolic of the British Empire to Ugandans, yet rejected in Britain. These are complexities that Jethwa brings clearly to light while, as a woman and an integrated yet partially rejected Dundonian, layering them with even more.
Director Jemima Levick keeps the whole thing ticking along at strong pace, using musician Patricia Panther's on-stage presence to help flesh it out as the play moves back to Uganda. She gives MacDonald plenty of space to create and interrogate her companions along the way.
A niggling question about the timing of it all is not quite resolved – but this provides both a strong historical tale and a deeper question of rebelling against the negative influences on your life.
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