Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Louise Mai Newberry, Steven Elder.

Man’s humanity to man has been seen for all it is worth over the last few months after image after image has reached all corners of the globe as the biggest mass exodus and movement of people since the Second World War has been beamed without hype into the homes of billions. Images of death, of desperation, of recriminations, of pain, of fear, of selfishness and of hope have all played their part of the story of 2015.

Some call them migrants, some refugees, however surely they are first and foremost human beings and it is this story of humanity on the move from oppression and war that has galvanised some into action and thought and into others the hard distaste of fear born and taken root. Some call them migrants, and worse, yet the story of two such people fighting against a rage of racism that has become unsavoury and was perhaps in many corners thought impossible to replicate once again on Europe’s shores is highlighted in Anders Lustgarten’s Lampedusa.

The Unity Theatre’s second floor is enticingly turned into the round for this particular play, the central floor becoming the equal soap box in which spleen turns to acceptance, the key to the rational thinking as both Denise and Stefano tell their tales, one from a Yorkshire woman of dual heritage’s point of view, battle hardened and life sick, the other from a man on the front line of rescuing those desperate enough to cross a dangerous sea, an islander whose life has been torn apart by unemployment and regret.

In both cases the story is all that is needed and yet both characters are brought to life via Louise Mai Newberry and the superb Steven Elder’s ability to hold the audience’s attention as the situation of those coming from the Middle East and Africa are either helped or painfully ignored.

The world is a small place, the central spot on the Unity Theatre’s second stage even smaller and yet both are made big, expansive, lonely and yet beautifully singular as the point of humanity is revealed, not one to make a profit out of suffering, not for the sake of waging religious dogma, war and terror on the streets of any country on the planet but one in which tolerance, acceptance and faith in a person’s right to exist is all too special to overlook.

A powerful piece which tugs at the heart and rams home the trouble at Europe’s blackening soul.

Ian D. Hall