Park theatre, London
Vernon Vanriel’s extraordinary battles with addiction, poverty and the Home Office are brought to life in a big-hearted if overlong show
This play enacts a boxer’s real-life story in 12 rounds, and what a life it is: the Caribbean-born Vernon Vanriel came to Britain at the age of six and rose from trainee electrician to the nation’s No 2 lightweight champion in 1982 before losing his fortune and becoming trapped in destitution and statelessness by the Windrush scandal.
Zahra Mansouri’s boxing ring stage is slowly pulled apart as the glittering career gives way to the second, darker act in Vanriel’s life when he sinks into depression and drug dependency. Worse still, he is refused re-entry to the UK after travelling to Jamaica, living in poverty and ill health for the next 13 years before David Lammy MP and the Guardian’s campaigning leads to his return home, and a landmark victory in the high court.