A scandal of our times
PICK OF THE DAY SITTING IN LIMBO BBC1, 8.30pm
INSPIRED by just one of the shocking real life stories from the Windrush scandal, this feature-length drama tells the devastating toll of the crisis.
Patrick Robinson plays Anthony Bryan, who is wrongfully detained by the Home Office and threatened with deportation after 50 years of living in the UK.
It starts with real footage of Theresa May, declaring: “The government will soon publish the immigration bill which will make it easier to get rid of people with no right to be here.”
Cut to Anthony being told by an apologetic boss that he has lost his job because he is not a UK citizen.
“This is a joke right?” he says. “I’ve been in this country my whole life.”
A letter on his doorstep confirms the worst. He can’t work, can’t use the NHS, can’t claim benefits and there’s no explanation.
Of course it’s impossible to get through to anyone on the phone, he can only join a massive queue of people to find out what’s happening.
Having moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1965 at the age of eight, he has discovered there is no record of him as a British citizen.
But the onus is now on him to prove it to the Home Office. It’s an incredibly frustrating, sad and isolating experience - he needs everything from his birth certificate from Jamaica to school records from the 1970s.
“From one human to another, what’s going on?” Anthony pleads to the Home Office worker.
A heartbreaking, shocking, human drama about a scandal of our times.