Far Gone is a profoundly moving story of a young boy’s journey from childhood innocence to child soldier. Seen through the eyes of those that love him and those that betray him. Okumu’s experience strikes straight at the heart through a powerful one-man performance.

Inspired by my real-life experience of nearly being kidnapped by the guerrilla rebel group The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony in Uganda, it draws on the contrast between my experiences as a child in Uganda and the experience of being a young black man in the UK, and how perceptions of ‘Africa’ effects his own narrative. It aims to address & widen the current representation on stage of Black British experience, particularly for BAME audiences.

TRAILER

BEHIND THE STORY

As a little boy, aged eight, I was nearly kidnapped from my home in Northern Uganda by the rebel group, The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) led by the notorious Joseph Kony. Ten years later while studying in my first year of drama school, I was stunned to see a video by Invisible Children, an American NGO calling for the capture of Joseph Kony. The video entitled ‘Kony 2012’ would become a viral phenomenon, except that it came far, far, too late. In order to reclaim the narrative, I conceived an idea and seven years later, Far Gone was written and came to life.

This play is not about me, the kid who was lucky enough to escape. This play is for the hundreds of thousands who did not. For the parents whose children were either lost forever or forever changed. For the young girls who were forced to marry men old enough to be their fathers. For the brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, nephews, sons and daughters who lost the innocence of childhood, simply for being born at an unfortunate time in an unfortunate place. For the future generations who will continue to suffer the trauma the LRA has imprinted on them, for many years to come.