‘We talk about boats … not people’: UK dehumanising refugees, Toby Jones says

The Bafta-winning actor Toby Jones has highlighted the dehumanisation of refugees arriving in the UK in boats, and called the Rwanda deportation scheme the latest “in a long line of challenges” that asylum seekers have to face “just to survive”.

Jones, known for his extensive character actor roles on stage and screen, is taking part in a 24-hour “Shakespeare marathon” to fundraise for Compass Collective, a charity that supports the integration of young refugees in the UK through the arts.

The actor, who has been a trustee of the charity since 2020, will join more than 80 other players – including Robert Glenister, Sylvestra Le Touzel and Owen Teale, as well as young refugee actors – for the production, which takes place at Scrum Studios in Hammersmith, west London, on 21 June.

“You’d have to be inhuman to not respond to children who find themselves as refugees, because through no fault of their own, they’re exposed to forces beyond their comprehension, forces which are potentially extremely dangerous and life threatening,” Jones said in an interview with the Guardian.

“I went to the Calais Jungle with Good Chance theatre and Letters Live a few years ago and performed there. Being shown around the camp had a profound impact on me. Just the vulnerability of the young people, and their yearning for a better life. No one crosses the world and puts themselves in such extreme danger without having a very good cause.”

The 57-year-old, who has appeared in Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, and most recently Mr Bates vs the Post Office, paid tribute to the Compass Collective’s work to help mould people “who can thrive in the societies in which they find themselves”.

“The issue [of refugees] is often treated with such binary attitudes, the situation is caricatured and misrepresented,” he said. “But whatever anyone thinks, we have unaccompanied young people, at the start of their lives, who need support.

“We talk about boats. We don’t talk about people any more, because that’s harder to talk about. But often these things aren’t actually boats, they’re inflatables that barely survive afloat. And they’re full of individuals with the same hopes, dreams and ambitions as the rest of us.”

Compass Collective supports about 500 young people aged 14-26, 70% of whom are unaccompanied minors. The charity has condemned the Rwanda deportation bill, which it said “represents a setback in our collective journey towards a more compassionate world”.

Asked about the Rwanda scheme, Jones said it was “utterly extraordinary in this day and age that a project like that seems like a viable proposition”. He added: “But Rwanda is just the latest in a long line of challenges that these people have to face just to survive.”

Compass expects to get through 23 Shakespeare plays in three simultaneous table reads during the marathon, the charity’s co-founder Leah Gayer said.

“The main roles for each play will be cast in advance, with others being spontaneously cast from the table as they’re performed. We’ll be kicking off with Romeo and Juliet. As the evening draws we will perform A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As the clock strikes midnight, we will enter the darker mind of Macbeth, Hamlet and Richard III.”

They will also feature plays such as The Tempest with a focus on “home”, this year’s theme of Refugee Week, which runs from 17-23 June. “Who knows what kind of acting happens at 4am after hours and hours of reading Shakespeare? Perhaps the stuff that dreams are made of,” Gayer added.

Jones said he had witnessed the young people’s resourcefulness in the sessions they had had together. “I don’t see them at their most vulnerable. They look very similar to how I was at their age, which is just having a fantastic time making theatre based on their own experiences. I’m hoping that finally I’ll get a chance to act with some of them on the night of this project.”

He added that the event would provide opportunities for all actors to play parts they have always wanted to play. “I’m going to put in some pretty strong lobbying on the day to try and get some parts that I’d never be normally considered for. Who knows – it might be my long-awaited opportunity to play Hamlet.”