Far Gone
- Robert Beale
- Oct 9
- 2 min read
John Rwothomack
Roots Mbili Theatre
Lowry, Salford
8-10 October, 2025: 1 hour 15 minutes
John Rwothomack’s one-man show Far Gone is not exactly a fun night out at the theatre. In his 75 minutes he befriends his audience and then takes them on a harrowing and deeply unsettling journey into the child abduction and brutalisation by the so-called Lord’s Resistance Army in northern Uganda in the past 30 years or more.
He does it by acting out what could have happened to one young boy. It’s a virtuosic performance, with the boy, his brother, members of the LRA and a “commander” each given a different voice, movement style and character to tell the story. There’s no set and almost no props – vivid mime, with sound effects over the PA system, often co-ordinated with Rwothomack’s voice, completing the enactment.
The LRA, a horrible combination of guerilla force, terrorist group and religious cult, is said to have captured more than 50,000 children over the decades in which it unsuccessfully tried to overthrow Uganda’s president Museveni, and turned many of them into heartless and dehumanised killers. It still has some power, playing off the rivalries of other armed groups in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Rwothomack is actor and writer, and Mojisola Kareem directs the show for Sheffield-based Roots Mbili Theatre.
It’s not meant to entertain. One aspect of its approach is that the well-intentioned audience – those who sit close to the performance area, at least – are drawn into responding to the cult-like manipulation, cruelty and creation of fear that the LRA used to gain allegiance, just as Ugandan children were, becoming almost complicit in the whole process. That in itself is enough to send you home with much to think about.
More info and tickets here
