The African Dragon New Wales

The journey of Gbubemi Amas has taken him from southern Nigeria

to a very Welsh village about 20 kilometres northwest of Swansea

which he now calls home.

-I'm free range, because they go away over the fields.

-Yes!

Come on!

They are great for their eggs.

I could be coming to ask you for one or two, then.

Yeah!

-This really gets my deep, deep umbilical cord.

-That's right.

This takes me back to when I was young.

Oh, it's so beautiful.

Amas has embraced Welsh culture.

Fresh cawl has become one of his all-time favourite dishes.

It reminds him of goat soup from West Africa.

-Champion!

-He's torn between support for the Ospreys

-and the Scarlets.

-I'm scarlet!

If you show some respect to your hosts

and appreciation of who they are

and you don't only come just to tell them what do you think they should be

it becomes a lot easier.

But 12 kilometres away from his new home

in the coal-mining valleys of South Wales,

a town elected its first BNP councillor in 2008.

Different countries have their BNPs.

We don't care where they're coming from,

this country is full and it's time to shut the door!

'The BNP is an extreme party.'

They are believing in the fears they have

and, sometimes, these fears might be real to them.

Act one, scene one, from the top.

Amas is an Nigerian musician and writer on a one-man mission

to prove that encounters between Welsh and African culture

can change people's lives for the better.

I've never worked with an African director before.

# Come together now... #

'That's kind of been my life's work, working with younger people.'

# It's a better world we're all living in... #

When not producing a play,

Amas might be painting,

making sculpture, composing music

or working as a consultant with community groups across Wales.

AFRICAN DRUMMING

Amas and his wife Oby moved to the UK from Nigeria in 2000.

In 2003, they faced a new challenge -

becoming the first African family

to settle in the South Wales village of Cross Hands.

DRUMMING CONTINUES

Amas, a one-man publicity machine,

is spreading the word about the approaching premiere of his play

to Cross Hands' shopkeepers and neighbours.

I don't get ill often, touch wood,

but I guess they'll remember my face.

Is Cross Hands - a village which got its name

for being a prisoner transit point between Carmarthen and Swansea -

ready for a challenging new vision of Welsh/African relations?

-How are you?

-Fine, thanks.

I'd like to leave a poster for a play that I wrote.

HE LAUGHS

Now, let's see if the chemist...

It looks open, should be open till six, I guess.

-Yeah, we'll sort that out.

-OK. You're looking well.

I have never had any trouble in Cross Hands

and it's quite a very peaceful neighbourhood

and people are quite friendly.

BUS TOOTS HORN

Hey! How you?

If you're stand-offish

and you don't seem to blend in the community you get into,

that's your fault, I would say.

-Hello.

-Hello.

This is a very good restaurant.

I stepped up from vindaloo...

-To phaal.

-To phaal.

So I'm all spiced up now.

A pint?

These neighbours remember the day

that Amas and Oby moved into the village.

Remember the removal van coming, yes.

Yeah, I think you must have been the first one to come.

-African?

-African, yes.

They voted him in.

LAUGHTER

Because he brought money into the...

I remember him coming here.

-I remember you coming here, and your wife...

-Oh, yes.

..coming here, when Obama was voted in

-as President of the USA.

-Yes, that's true.

I remember you coming in, and "It's a day to celebrate," you said.

-That's right.

-True?

-Very, very true.

Amas was commissioned to write and direct a play

by the Mess Up The Mess Theatre Workshop.

It's a Lottery-funded showcase for young acting talent in Wales.

It's a love story with universal themes, modern-day problems

and an Afro/Welsh twist.

Plays and scripts are an excuse for you to explore.

The casting call was for a play

unlike anything these teenage actors had ever encountered.

We have just one Belcher, we need a second Belcher.

The young cast is expected to make at least a two-month commitment

to a play that introduces a culture they know little or nothing about.

OK, Katunges, can you stay close to Katunge?

He told us that he came from Africa

and he'd be directing our new show.

I'd never worked with an African director before.

Read the script!

We didn't know Amas at all, so when he came in,

he was like, "Amas," and we were like, "All right, mate!"

We always are sarcastic when someone we don't know walks in, so you know.

I have missed you so much. How was school today?

The heart of the story

is an intercultural, interracial romance.

Katunge, an African boy,

and Gwendolyn, a Welsh girl, fall in love.

I'm sorry, I got upset. You know I love you.

The story does not unfold in predominantly white Wales

or in predominantly black Africa

but in a fictional country called Walganda

where racial divisions no longer confine friendships.

The issues of intercultural marriages now

is no more a big deal.

This is my fertility maiden.

That's what it's called.

Mixed-race children

are the largest-growing racial group in the UK today.

But mixed-race couples didn't always have it so easy,

as Amas' wife Oby can testify.

I grew up in Nigeria. I was born in Nigeria

to a Nigerian father and a white British mother.

My parents met in the '50s

when my father came to the United Kingdom to study.

'He was an engineering student

'and he met my mother, she was studying chemistry.'

Racism was rife at the time they met.

So there was this young black boy going out with a young white woman

and it wasn't very easy for them.

After their wedding, my father took my mother back to Nigeria

and that's where I was born.

Amas the art student and Oby the law student

met at university in Nigeria.

They eventually married, had a couple of kids

and in 2000 decided to try life in the UK.

This time, we felt, "OK, we need to have a change of scene

"and give the children a choice as well."

The children decided to attend university in Swansea.

Swansea has long been a magnet for Nigerian and international students.

Oby's brother is a law professor at Swansea University.

MUSIC, SINGING

Swansea has one of the larger Nigerian communities outside London.

Swansea being a university town, that really helped.

I would probably say about 60% are from Nigeria

who are part of our congregation.

From multi-national Swansea,

Amas and Oby moved to Cross Hands.

A backlash to immigration resounded loudly

during the last general election.

Whether it's Islamic immigration, coloured of any sort,

whether it's the Poles who've flooded this country,

this country is full and it's time to shut the door!

CHEERING

Back in 2008, the town of Llandybie,

about 12 miles west of Cross Hands,

elected its first BNP councillor.

Different countries have their BNPs

and they say, "Oh, these guys are coming to take our jobs,

"oh, corner shops all over the place..."

I used to own a jazz club in Swansea

and I remember once, a guy came to the club, we served him a beer

and he came over to me and showed me his arm

and peeled it up and the sign "BNP" was there.

He said, "Do you know what that means?" I say, "Yeah."

"So, you know what that means?" I say, "Yeah!"

I say, "Yeah, but you're welcome here."

He kept coming back!

Last year, there were over 1,900 racist incidents

reported in South Wales.

I reckon that if I had gone, "Oh, you're not allowed in here!

"Get out! Blah blah blah,"

then he would get satisfaction from, "Oh, I've shaken one guy.

"Who's next?"

My wife Oby, all she might have faced is institutional racism,

where it is not a single person coming to you in your face,

it's a case of, you are a lawyer, you are very qualified

and you can't get a job.

All you can get is a cleaning job, if you're lucky.

I came full of enthusiasm,

thinking, "Oh, I can easily get a job, I've got qualifications."

It does something to your confidence

to come in thinking you're qualified to do a job

and then finding that no-one really thinks you are!

Oby was a magistrate in Nigeria with the potential of becoming a judge

but in Britain she was considered unqualified to practise law.

She has since passed the UK bar exam

and now works as a planning manager for the NHS.

In between play rehearsals, Amas and Oby occasionally team up

to bring the sounds and tastes of Africa to the Welsh Valleys.

This bridge-building soiree

is part of a Welsh Assembly scheme called Communities First.

It's the first of its kind at the Newbridge Rugby Club,

about 60 kilometres east of Cross Hands.

Different cultures are coming into the valleys.

People are not used to it

and it can affect more of the older generation, with change, really.

When trouble starts, they associate it with that.

They just want to keep their valleys Welsh.

My grandson says to me, "You're European,"

and I say, "No, I'm not, I'm Welsh!"

We've got our own culture.

But I feel now, as an older person,

that they're taking all that away from us,

our chapels, our everything.

Because we're having an influx of different nationalities,

all our customs are going away.

APPLAUSE

Thank you!

Amas and Oby see their mission

to enrich, not endanger, another culture.

OK, let's take it again and let's have more volume.

I missed you very much. How was school today?

I have a lead part,

a shepherd named Katunge,

meaning "rich" or something like that.

'What made it doubly interesting was

'Katunge was being played by a Welsh boy.'

The very name "Katunge", that's a totally different tongue formation!

An experience with a different spice could virtually change your day!

-How was school today?

-It was fine.

'It's an injection which now begins to grow inside them.'

So you're now a vet!

You don't need to go to school to learn about animals!

It makes the world smaller.

With MY experience as a shepherd, I can show you how.

With my EXPERIENCE as a SHEPHERD,

I can show you HOW!

'Katunge in the play is a cattle-rearer boy

'whose father is very rich.'

Take it again. Project, project.

'Now Gwendolyn is a lovely Welsh girl

'who was more prone to going to school'

and Katunge felt it was a better life

to be in the fields and tend the cows and get engaged with nature

and that was where the problem started.

'It was a bit of a mixture of

'things that happen in Wales and happen in Uganda,

'and it was just going through their life a bit, really.

What are you sorry about?

-I dropped it.

-Yeah, but you're not.

She missed Katunge a lot when she wasn't with them,

and he missed her a lot,

but they thought they were taking it too fast.

GIRL WAILS

The love story unfolds against a backdrop of deep poverty

and a local industry causing massive pollution.

He's not going to die.

Not exactly light entertainment

but themes that echo personal experiences of Amas

as well as harsh realities in Wales today.

Are you coming with me or what? My mates will be here in one minute.

'It was about two young people'

who had lots of problems in their lives

and I was one of their problems.

'I don't like pollution

'so when I come on stage for the first time, I'm yelling...'

I'm tired of this shit pollution and all these crops dying

and no food, and no money, and all these kids following me around.

"Blah blah blah," all that. It gets on my nerves!

I don't like pollution in my world.

Well, there's a group of people called Yobs

and they decide to protest towards Mr Belcher.

Ladies and gentlemen!

The plants bring jobs, the incinerator even more jobs.

The investors need to see profit.

The chairman deserves a big bonus.

-CHILDREN:

-No, no, no!

Belcher! Shut your stinking mouth and sit down!

They protest so much that

he decides to reduce the carbon emissions at the plant.

Amas witnessed first-hand

how pollution can destroy lives and communities.

Where I come from,

in the Delta region in Nigeria,

there's loads of waters and fishing,

it's quite easy to access food, like crayfish...

until the oil companies came, though, and all the water got polluted.

My village, Dali, in Warri,

had fish coming up belly-up.

I had a first-hand observation and experience

of how pollution could really affect the environment

and therefore the people, their feeding patterns,

their economy, their lives, the whole thing, the fabric.

So in the play, it was quite easy for me to tap into that root.

And also coal mining, that for me is quite tricky.

This day, I'm still trying to look into

whether coal-mining is really wrong or right.

Amas' new home in Cross Hands

is also a community that has lost its traditional means of livelihood.

It's a history as close as his own backyard,

a history that was lived by his neighbour, Glyn Daniel.

For how long did you work in the mines?

-36 years, underground.

-36 years.

Mostly on the coalface.

The New Cross Hands Colliery boasted the best coal in the world.

Most of the boys, men, that I worked with,

most of them have passed away now.

There was a pit shaft just by there.

The engine house was down here.

This was where they had the steam to drive the carriages down.

Miles of forgotten tunnels remain underground.

You can say it's about, altogether, three miles...

AMAS GASPS

-..underground.

-Underground?

Amas is not the first African to embrace Welsh culture.

-They've got a black man to work down the pit.

-Well?

What about it?

Why, damn and blast it, man, aren't we all black down that pit?

In the 1940s, Paul Robeson, an African-American singer and actor,

embraced the culture, broke racial barriers,

and took a controversial stand in support of Welsh miners.

He was American. He came over

and joined force with the lesser privileged people,

got into some trouble.

I know he sang some (DEEP VOICE) "big voice sounds!"

# All through the night... #

'The university I went to, the University of Nigeria out in Nsukka,'

had its drama building named Paul Robeson.

It's time for the first dress rehearsal.

'The costuming I did for them

'is the same I would do for Broadway.'

I like the hat.

I like your bangles. That's from Primark?

HE LAUGHS

If I give anyone a costume, it could be a pair of glasses,

a piece of cloth,

whatever I give to you, as a costume,

you own your costume straight away. We keep them in the corner somewhere.

I give them my best walking sticks, my best hats,

my original masks, some about 100 years old.

I give them the very best

because I was anxious for them to have a true taste, not a semblance.

Hands up, please.

'It was a good experience to do something

'to do with a different culture toward our own.'

We learned about their costumes and their clothes and things

and their instruments and how they live.

They had dresses on and things, so they looked proper Africany, yeah.

Who amongst you has a traditional Welsh outfit

with a bonnet, with a proper...?

-I've got one.

-Mine's like this big.

He was a bit frustrated,

I think he thought it was a bit too much to do with Africa,

and there wasn't quite enough Welsh culture in there

but we got there in the end.

I think he was a bit annoyed

with some of the people who know Welsh but didn't use Welsh.

This is Wales, and we need to demonstrate

that this play is also in Wales.

He's got a rugby top, yeah?

OK, rugby top, but who has got a traditional...with a bonnet?

I've just got the bonnet, I've just got the hat.

The hat, who can borrow, please?

We added a couple of pieces of Welsh things in,

so you could tell it was Wales.

Some of the drum players wore Welsh costumes,

Welsh rugby T-shirts and stuff.

Act one, scene one, from the top.

The play is starting.

'In my work, what I've noticed is that there is social poverty,'

the lack of social mobility, lack of influence of family...

'..younger ones believing they know it all,

'a lack of formed community - which Africa has,

'which Nigeria has in quantum!'

Fly to the house!

# When the rain is blowing in your face

# And the whole world is on your case... #

'The main part that I did was the solo singer.'

It was a song I sang for Gwendolyn because she was missing Katunge.

# I could hold you for a million years

# ALL: To make you feel my love. #

No money!

Bam!

No jobs!

-Bam!

-No crops!

Bam!

-It tipped over.

-Sorry.

Not your fault, not your fault.

Oh, my God, are you OK?

-OK, so finally some excitement I see!

-That was awkward.

I'd like to thank you guys for today.

I think you were just marvellous.

Can we have a round of applause for all of you?

The Amas one-man publicity machine also hit the local airwaves.

Keep it locked on Radio Cardiff at 98.7 FM,

so if you're listening, we want to talk

because it sounds like it's...

A - a good thing to travel around Wales,

as we were saying, there's a lot of poverty-stricken areas,

and if we can take it around Wales and then across to Nigeria, Uganda,

-what a great way to pass on a message.

-Yep.

Oh, no!

We have one hour, seven minutes to rehearsals,

so this heart is not going to happen today.

I can't even have access tomorrow. Today is Thursday

and the play is Saturday.

But no matter what happens, the play is going to go on.

CHILDREN ALL SPEAK AT ONCE

I see the light!

Boogeymen, go!

No, no, no!

-Stronger!

-Belcher!

-Again, no, no, no, please!

I'm a chief! I should banish you to the cornfields

for saying such things!

Take it from the top. It's too soft

and too... No passion.

'Much like the Katunge-Gwendolyn parts in the play,'

the romance of Nigeria

and...especially Swansea,

it's been growing nicely.

Is the play really about Katunge and Gwendolyn

or is it about the encounter between Nigeria and Swansea?

We have quite a number of students who pay quite some hefty fees

and they keep the place going, they're having a good time.

I just finished my Master's degree in finance.

-International relations.

-Aerospace.

In spite of Swansea's large Nigerian community,

Amas was incredulous to discover

that an authentic Nigerian restaurant had opened there.

My friend mentioned to me,

"There's a Nigerian restaurant in Swansea. I said, "What?"

He said, "Yes, there's a Nigerian restaurant!"

I said, "African?" He said, "No, Nigerian."

I say, "You must be kidding me!"

I'm making beans and plantain porridge.

Sometimes we call it bachelor's food

because it's the easiest thing

for the bachelor man who doesn't have a wife to prepare.

It brings them the memory of home.

One thing led to the other, and it blossomed

into such love that, at the end of the play,

they eventually got married.

Mum, Dad, we have an important announcement to make.

-WHISPERS:

-Please, everyone...

Please, everybody listen. We're getting married.

CHEERING

This calls for a celebration!

In a case of life imitating art,

an African wedding came to Wales

when Amas and Oby's daughter Omawumi got married in Cross Hands.

It was a big surprise.

We just saw a couple of people going up the road

and we thought, "What's going on?"

So we didn't have a clue.

They had lovely head-dresses,

long, very, very colourful, very beautiful gowns on

and the gentlemen were also in national costumes.

We had a dozen people staying here from Nigeria

in their traditional African dresswear, very colourful.

The children were very pretty.

Haven't seen anything like that in Cross Hands.

I'm not sure if the older gentlemen in the bar may have seen something

but it was a first for me.

It was absolutely fantastic

and very nice people.

They were all saying hello as they were walking past.

I'd say, the first African wedding in Cross Hands itself.

It was lovely African music.

It was nothing like...

like the music you've got of youngsters today!

I want to give the impression that the sunlight is very strong,

so it would be nice to see some shadows,

which normally every director wants to avoid, but I love shadows

because it's true to life, isn't it?

In Africa you see your shadows, they go with you everywhere.

You can hardly get away from them.

-That's all right, then. Yeah?

-You look great,

-sincerely.

-You sounded like you were a bit sarcastic there.

No, there's no sarcasm. If anything, it's envy.

I am very, very jealous,

so don't push your luck!

Everyone looks really cool in their costumes.

We haven't seen them fully costumed and stuff yet

so it's really, really cool.

The play is about to have its Welsh premiere.

I'm really nervous about tonight. Hoping everything will go well.

-I'm slightly nervous about it.

-I forgot my lucky bracelet.

# Don't worry

# About a thing... #

Everyone is excited, and that's so really pleasing

to see that they are happy.

I'm jumpy!

MUSIC: "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley

Hey, love birds, what's going on in here? Get a room!

Get away!

No jobs, no money!

# Three little birds... #

Mum, Dad, we have an important announcement to make.

Please, everybody listen. We're getting married.

EVERYONE GASPS

ALL: You're getting married?

CHEERING

My parents and my family decided they thought it was really good

and they were influenced by it

and they thought it was very mature

for a group of our age to be doing something like that.

The ripple effects of this bridge-building enterprise

are spreading outwards.

I'd love to go to Africa

because I hear it's nice warm weather, like, very warm out there.

There's lots of new people to meet out there

and you can teach them things like...Welsh!

# Don't worry about a thing... #

Makes me feel like this whole drama thing is like a family...

Makes me feel like all of us are a family together.

If you don't have your own roots, the tree is going to die.

It's OK for them to go to California, Rio de Janeiro,

but please, pack a bag of Welsh!

APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd