The Jungle

Over a period of about 18 months between January 2015 and October 2016, a refugee camp in Calais grew to a population of thousands. All had one aim in mind – to reach the UK by stowing away on lorries, ferries, cars or trains: a feat which became known to the inhabitants as ‘good chance’. As the population grew, amenities grew with it, including the Afghan Restaurant where this play is set. Likewise, many volunteers arrived in the camp from the UK and elsewhere to help. Playwrights Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson created Good Chance theatre there, and after the camp was cleared, brought a play to the Young Vic about ‘The Jungle’.

Now transferred to the Playhouse Theatre in London's West End, this production is essential viewing for you and your students. In turns hilarious, shocking and moving, it charts the life, growth and destruction of the camp through the eyes of a hugely varied mix of people – from Syrian writer and academic Safi to tortured soul (both literally and metaphorically) Okot, from Sudan; to English volunteers including an Eton boy barely out of his school uniform and a crumbling elderly Newcastle drunk running away from his wife.

The design, by Miriam Buether, transforms the Playhouse utterly – converting the entire ground-floor into an immersive rendition of the Afghan Restaurant. Book tickets in the stalls to experience this up close, and to be offered fresh naan and milky chai while the performance takes place on tables and around you on the woodchip and earth-strewn floor. From the circle (renamed the Cliffs of Dover), I had a voyeuristic sense of the production which beautifully summed up the removal of those of us across the water in England; but I envied those audience members in the heart of it, with all its hope, desperation, camaraderie and heartache.

This is a play which asks us to think about what it is to be one of those people who leave everything behind and risk their lives daily for months in hope of reaching somewhere better. It holds nothing back: in particular I was glad to see that the volunteers aren't painted as saints, but as flawed individuals in their own rights, who have it in them unwittingly to insult the migrants or even spark catastrophe, while trying to do good. Your students cannot fail to learn from it – both about drama and about life.

The Jungle is running at Playhouse Theatre until 3 November. Further details can be found at tinyurl.com/td-a1-jungle