Katherine MacAlister talks to Krissi Bohn about new show A Bogus Woman

The theatre company behind A Bogus Woman, a play set in Campsfield House, Kidlington’s controversial detention centre, must be rubbing their hands in glee at the timing of its revival.

Coming to Oxford’s North Wall in what will be a poignant and timely re-telling of asylum and immigration, the striking one-woman play, starring Coronation Street star Krissi Bohn, highlights the system and realities still facing our refugees.

Manchester-based Krissi, who played Lloyd Mullaney’s long lost daughter Jenna Kamara in the famous soap, portrays 51 different characters, to bring to life the powerful story of asylum in modern Britain.

The play, based on true stories, tells of an unnamed young woman from an African country who flees abuse after seeing her child, parents, husband and sister murdered.

She arrives in Britain to seek asylum and a new life, but tragedy ensues. Krissi can’t give the end away, but suffice to say things don’t end well.

And while enormously sympathetic to their plight, Krissi has already got so much to think about during the play, transforming herself into soldiers, immigration officials, detention centre staff, fellow asylum seekers, do-gooders, lawyers and many others whom the young woman meets as her life spirals down into tragedy, that it’s all encompassing.

Krissi first performed A Bogus Woman in 2008 for a summer season only, so is delighted to be back now with such a relevant national tour.

“We had no idea how topical it would be when we planned it last year,” she tells me.

“We knew it was election year, but other than that we had no idea what a contentious subject it would be.”

And massively relevant to Oxford?

“For me it’s set in a detention centre, any detention centre, but is based on real-life events such as the Campsfield riots, and other incidents that really happened.

“I haven’t been to Campsfield but we did visit a detention centre near Gatwick and were shocked at how clinical and stark it was there.

“And I don’t think things have massively improved. People who haven’t done anything wrong are still basically being imprisoned.

“But this gives the story a human face and shows that everyone has a story - that all asylum seekers aren’t just a number and have a reason for being here. So hopefully it will make people think and everyone can take away something different from it, whether from a humanitarian, political or a theatrical point of view.”

So how affected has Krissi been by her latest role?

“I have to be emotionally detached to play all these different characters,” she tells me.

“Because it is as physically tiring as it is emotional, and a big responsibility because I am telling their story.

“And while until now it has been relatively easy to distance yourself from what’s going on, to stand back and let things happen around you, to not get involved, this has got people really fired up, so A Bogus Woman couldn’t have come at a better time.”

Where and when
A Bogus Woman
Wed September 23
North Wall Arts Centre
www.thenorthwall.com 01865 319 450