In an American prison, an HIV-positive illegal immigrant from Uganda called Biro tells us the story of his life. "Help me," he implores, and it could be the cry of all Africa, scarred over the past 50 years by civil war, corruption, dictatorships and the terrible effects of an Aids epidemic.
Biro's personal history is intimately entwined with the history of his country. Born in 1964, just a few years before Idi Amin seized power, Biro is the youngest child of a large family who resisted Amin's dictatorship and paid the price in death and exile. He grows up in a divided society and soon finds himself taking sides.
Joining the National Liberation Army, Biro becomes - like so many of his fellow soldiers - a casualty of leisure rather than war. Sent with 70 others to Cuba for special training, he and 31 others are diagnosed as HIV-positive and sent back to Uganda with a death sentence hanging over them. He is determined to stay alive, and knows that only in the US will he get the medicine to survive and earn enough to ensure the future of his baby son.
Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine's one-man show is a heartfelt piece that would move anyone without a heart of stone. It cleverly casts the audience as the prison visitor who might be able to offer the despairing Biro one final shred of hope. But while this theatrical conceit works well, the piece, like so many one-man shows, never entirely proves that its place is in the theatre rather than the lecture hall, or in book form. The accompanying blown-up photographs are wonderful, but only exacerbate the sense that this is storytelling that hasn't quite made the leap to fully-fledged theatre.
· In rep until November 30. Box office: 020-7307 5060.
