Irish/English | Sierra Leonean/Lebanese
I identify as Sierra Leonean, Lebanese, Irish and English. I’m atheist and gay. My mum is from Sierra Leone and my dad from east London. My dad used to be a feather weight boxer and my mum was a cigarette girl at the Eve club. She used to hang out with the Rolling Stones and would pretend to be Shirley Bassey’s sister. My parent’s aspiration for us to grow up in the very White suburbs meant we lost touch with the past. They were always looking forward to their idyllic home, two kids and a car existence and rarely talked about their past, my grandparents or their homes. They never really reached that goal, so they tried to pass it on to us. This meant there’s always been very little talk about cultures and our greater family. Which I feel incredibly sad about. My dad has died, and my mum is getting older and more reluctant to speak about the past means it may all get lost. People can never place me. They often see the Lebanese in me or think I’m Mediterranean and they never see the Sierra Leone in me. I’ve inherited Sierra Leone ways just as much as I’ve inherited my dad’s Irish ways. Theatre is an incredibly White middle-class industry, which is changing slowly. I’m often in rooms which are exploring and promoting diversity. I want to throw myself deep into the conversation for all underrepresented voices not just my own voice, but I do often feel that I can be seen as another White middle-class man sticking his nose in. I struggle with my right to celebrate my parents and grandparent’s voices when I don’t really look like them to the outside world. I get the question ‘where are you from’ a lot, it can get quite tedious but the other side of it is at least their interested. As a kid I hated the things that made me different, but I now love the features I’ve inherited. If I had the opportunity to be reborn I would come back the same but with bags more confidence.
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