By Tatenda Shamiso
Director - Sean Ting-Hsuan Wang
Designer - Claudia Casino
Lighting Designer - Zoe Beeny
Producer - Dylan Marc Verley
Stage Manager - Yi-Ting Huang
Photo credit - Marc Brenner
Royal Court Theatre | Apr 18 - May 6 2023
NO I.D. - Royal Court Theatre 2023
NO I.D. - The VAULT Festival 2023
NO I.D. - Theatre Peckham 2022
NO I.D. - Peckham Fringe at Theatre Peckham 2022
Transferring to the Royal Court Theatre after a sold-out run at the inaugural Peckham Fringe, Theatre Peckham’s Young, Gifted & Black Season, and a ★★★★★ run at VAULT Festival
NO I.D. is a goofy, tender and fast-paced solo piece which investigates the continuity of a trans man's identity through the lens of his bureaucratic and medical gender transition as an immigrant in the UK. Tatenda is trying to prove to HMRC that the girl on his passport photo and the man he is now are the same person in order to establish his new identity on paper... but are they actually the same person? He guides us through his childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, digging through photos, testimonies from family and friends, and the songs he wrote in the first year of his transition to present his life as a case for review.
This show is a love-letter to gender transitions and an examination of how absurd our bureaucratic systems can be. With laughter, music, and a healthy dose of care, Tatenda shows us what it takes to validate Black and queer identities in the eyes of the law.