Isa is black and from Senegal, Alex is white and German. Between the summer of 1999 and the spring of 2001, they meet, fall in love and have a child. As the tension in the town increases, fuelled by anti-immigrant protesters and accusations of police brutality, the relationship is stretched to breaking point.

Based on real events, Amy Evans’ fascinating multi-layered play is a startling depiction of contemporary Germany with powerful and disturbing resonances closer to home.

Achidi J’s Final Hours was joint winner of the 2002 Verity Bargate Award and received a rehearsed reading in the Frontline season at Soho Theatre & Writers’ Centre in November 2003.

This première production brings together the talents of internationally acclaimed playwright, making his directorial debut, Ché Walker (Flesh Wound at the Royal Court Theatre in 2003, winner of the George Devine Award and an Arts Council Young Writers’ Award), with the exciting new talent of African-American first time playwright Amy Evans.

Achidi J’s Final Hours forms part of the debut season of Frontline, a new artistic collaboration between Timothy Hughes of Weaver Hughes Ensemble and Rebecca Manson Jones of Spikenard.

The Press on Achidi J's Final Hours
"You don’t expect a young African American dramatist to write a play about racial tension in Germany. But Amy Evans’ award winning first play has a strangely elliptical, expressionist quality that places it firmly in a European tradition of writers like Koltes, Handke or Kane . . . In a series of short, brutally fragmented scenes, Evans depicts the fate of a Senegalese immigrant called Isa. She meets Alex, an out of work decorator, tentatively shacks up with him and eventually bears his child. But, excluded from his social and familial life by her race and existing in a xenophobic urban climate, Isa leaves him to live with a Senegalese female activist. Alex’s claim to the child, reinforced by police brutality, precipitates the climactic disaster. What Evans conveys poignantly is the isolation of the immigrant in a bureaucratic culture. We see both Isa and Alex being interviewed by box-ticking penpushers but, while he knows the rules of the game, she is at the mercy both of the language and the anti immigrant ethos. . . this play is the work of a talented writer with a gift for unexpected phrases: The fog in Senegals so thick that you can climb it like a flight of stairs, says Isa’s friend. Che Walker’s direction underscores the works debt to European tradition and Amanda Wright as the glamorously desolate Isa, Martin Brody as her lover and Linda Gathu as her friend all give strong performances in an imaginatively lit production."
Michael Billington, The Guardian

"This is, by some distance, the best play that I have seen this year. Bracing, intense and tragic, it is evidently based on real life events. It is compellingly, convincingly performed and succeeds in combining its political message with a tragedy caused by human foibles. The main character is brought down by racist state power combined with a mistaken relationship. The Finborough Theatre often stages plays with political points to make and, on this occasion, records a resounding success. . .This is an unmissable play which portrays the chilling reality faced by many Third World immigrants to Western Europe."
Glen Baker, Morning Star

"Fringe theatre is bristling with creativity and flare but is often overlooked. This seething mass of talent has risen to the surface at the Finborough with this transfixing production. Making his directorial debut, Che Walker creates a wonderfully tragic journey . . . Wright’s performance (her first professional engagement) is masterful and dynamic, representing the quality of the entire production. Brody plays hotheaded boyfriend Alex with a frenetic energy, which almost entirely juxtaposes Wrights Isa. The atmospheres created by lighting designer Alex Wardle and the all encompassing sound beds from sound designer Jack C Arnold are the most fluid, well executed and beautifully designed seen in any fringe production, complimenting the performances perfectly. Tragic and terminal it may be, but this production is a triumph for all involved."
Rob Speight, The Stage

"Amy Evans’ first play, which won the Verity Bargate Award two years ago, is about racial hatred and cruelty to immigrants in present day Germany. It is a play about the lost, the abandoned, the insecure. . ..Evans understands the especial claustrophobia of not belonging . . . This is a most impressive debut, and Martin Brody and Amanda Wright (who is making her own debut) are two of the most promising newcomers seen in years."
John Peter, The Sunday Times

"Che Walker’s poised production"
Dominic Maxwell, Time Out

"It’s not difficult to see why the playwright Che Walker chose to make his directorial debut with this, the first piece by Amy Evans. In its lyricism, one minute tender, the next brutal, it’s not dissimilar in tone to Walker’s own “Been So Long” and “Flesh Wound”. . . Evans has a distinctive and intriguing theatrical voice: one to which, judging by this sensitive and highly effective production, Walker is acutely attuned. . .Walker, directing a persuasive cast led by Martin Brody as Alex and Amanda Wright as Isa, creates a dark and compelling onstage world. Dick Bird’s set of wooden blocks and burnt paper strikes the right note of impoverished seediness, while Evans’ stylised language finds a parallel in Alex Wardle’s stunning lighting design, which throws sharp shafts of illumination over even the plays murkiest corners. The whole is arresting: and it promises that, as a playwright, Evans has plenty more to say."
Sam Marlowe, The Times

"Amy Evans, also a performance poet, has an admirably lyrical sensibility."
Dominic Maxwell, Time Out

"Men are from Germany, women are from Senegal in this tough new play. . .
Breathless pace, cinematic switches of character and location, and brisk dialogue give her play its urgency. . .memorable . . . .This is a dynamic portrait of an under society surviving: just; roughly: through drugs and prostitution, low wages and personal pride. Acted with commitment, directed with attention to the dark toughness beneath official oblivion, it’s a live, colourful panorama of people whose lives are squeezed into a monochrome survival struggle."
Timothy Ramsden, Reviewsgate