Worthing-based Jennifer Irons is promising to fight “absurdity with absurdity” as she tackles our post-Brexit world with her new show Bad Immigrant.
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers, really lovely
00:06to speak to again, again to Jennifer Irons of Worthing, and you've got your world premiere
00:11coming up of the new show, a new show that comes from a pretty dark place, it's called
00:16Bad Immigrant, and that's been your experience, well, since Brexit fell on us really, isn't
00:22it? Tell me about the starting point for this show.
00:27Well, first of all, world premiere makes it sound like really amazing, so thank you for
00:31that.
00:32I'm sure it is.
00:35World premiere in Worthing, so it came from sort of post-Brexit, the sort of shift in
00:42how I felt being an immigrant in this country when I arrived 25 years ago, it felt very
00:48welcoming and people were really excited to know where I was from, and then post-Brexit
00:53I had people, literally, that I knew for a long time and said things to me like, maybe
00:58you should just go home.
00:59It's absolutely tragic to hear, isn't it? How do you explain that? Can you begin to
01:04explain that, why that should change?
01:08Which part?
01:09That change, you know, that you were welcomed and that your accent was seen as an advantage,
01:14and now you're saying your accent is seen as a failure to naturalise.
01:19Well, it depends on what you read, but I think certain newspapers would have you believe
01:24that everything from the lack of housing to the reason your dairy milk bar is smaller
01:29is the fault of the immigrants.
01:31And so there's this kind of language around, you know, where to blame for things, all the
01:39things, depending on who you speak to.
01:41So there's an aim to want to shift that conversation a little bit.
01:46It feels really absurd, and this is the word I use all the time, that the absurdity of
01:51Brexit, the absurdity of the immigration rules, the absurdity of the way that immigrants are
01:56spoken about.
01:57So I'm fighting absurdity with absurdity and have decided to do some roller skating for
02:02your enjoyment and entertainment.
02:05Because that's your way to become a citizen of any country you want, then, if you became
02:09a world champion, an elite sportswoman, and that's the absurdity.
02:15Well, part of it, yeah, it's touching on a few of those things.
02:17You know, it's this, there's this sort of perceived, you know, you need to deserve it.
02:25You need to be grateful to be here.
02:27You know, there's a sort of rules that immigrants are expected to follow.
02:30And, you know, if you're a world champion athlete, then you're sort of lauded and will
02:36accept you if you're good at sports or like really high achieving in something.
02:42And so I kind of took the starting point as a Canadian sports person named Elizabeth
02:46Manley when she won the silver medal in the Olympics.
02:49And she's who the person that sticks out in my mind.
02:51And it's a very sort of iconic image.
02:53If you look her up, she's in this fluorescent pink outfit.
02:56And so there isn't much ice skating here, but there's a lot of roller skating.
02:59And so I thought, OK, I'm going to emulate my childhood hero and I'm going to see if
03:03I can become a championship roller skater in two years.
03:07And if that happens, then maybe I'll be accepted here and accepted in Canada and accepted anywhere.
03:13And maybe you'll all love me.
03:15I'm sure we will.
03:17And that the hope clearly is to make people think again, to provoke a few changes, perhaps
03:22in attitude.
03:23Do you have any optimism that we can get back to being a welcoming country again?
03:29Oh, I hope it has to be there.
03:32Otherwise you just give up.
03:34Yeah, I think absolutely.
03:36And, you know, at the heart of it, it's really about, you know, everybody wants and needs
03:42to belong to a community or belong to a group or belong to something.
03:45And that's across all of humanity.
03:49And so if we can find what that thing is and welcome other people in, each of us individually
03:56doing that is going to help and make it better.
03:59As long as that welcoming is with like love and joy and hope, then those little kind of
04:05acts will, I think they kind of ripple out and they expand.
04:09And the more of us that are doing it, better it's going to be.
04:14And if it's fun and ridiculous and absurd on the way, even better.
04:20Well, good luck with changing our world for the better.
04:23It probably needs it.
04:24The magic and joy and love of roller skating.
04:27So you premiere, world premiere in February.
04:31I'm thinking, hoping for an autumn tour.
04:35Good luck with everything and lovely to speak to you.