“I come from a farm, from the forests and fields of green Ukraine. From the resettlement camps of Germany. From the beaches of the Adriatic. ...And the cool air of Inverness" The London premiere run of Matthew Zajac’s internationally acclaimed The Tailor of Inverness opens at the multi-award-winning Finborough Theatre for a four-week limited season on Tuesday 14th May and runs until 8th June. This is a long overdue opportunity for London audiences to see an unforgettable and critically-acclaimed story of displacement and survival in war-torn Europe. A powerful allegory for all victims of war, it is a true story of journeys, of how a boy who grew up on a farm in Galicia (then in Eastern Poland, now in Western Ukraine) came to be a tailor in Inverness… That is the story he told….but was the tailor really who he said he was? Mateusz Zajac’s life spanned most of the 20th century. Taken prisoner by the Soviets in 1939 and forced to work, he was freed in an amnesty after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and joined the thousands of Poles fighting with the British Army in North Africa and Italy. He was then resettled in Britain in 1948, joining his brother in Glasgow. Playwright and actor Matthew Zajac has worked as an actor for 42 years. He is Artistic Director of Dogstar, most recently directing The Stornoway Way by Kevin MacNeil and The Fallen Angels of the Moine by George Gunn. His other plays include The Sky Is Safe and an adaptation of James Robertson’s novel The Testament of Gideon Mack, due for production in 2025. As Matthew told me when we chatted, there were a couple of occasions that could have sparked his interest in the theatre. " It could have been using my granny’s bed recess in her kitchen as a mini theatre when I was a wee about 6. It had curtains and I remember performing a song for my mum, granny and aunty. But I’m more sure it when I was in The Crucible at Inverness High School when I was 17. It was such a powerful experience. It’s what made me decide to be an actor. " Often we use the world of theatre to escape the real world, but I wondered how Matthew felt discovering some of his father's back story was fiction. " For me, theatre is a crucial part of the real world. All the same, it’s more constructed than much of life outside it. Discovering secrets my dad kept made me a bit angry at first. But I got over that quite quickly and realised he’d given me a great story." It seems the play has been cathartic not only for him. " Yes, doing the show is cathartic for me. Fortunately, it seems to have a similar effect on the audience! I didn’t turn to the theatre to help me deal with what I learned about my dad. I was already planning to write a book about him. That was quite daunting and I’d spent over 20 years working on new plays, so I decided to write a play instead because I thought it would be easier! The book came later." What else can the audience look forward to? " A few laughs, a few tears, some fantastic fiddle music, drama, video, documentary, dancing, singing and a quite a lot of theatre in a very small space!" After delighting London audiences, the play will continue globetrotting more than the man if features with tours to France and Scotland in November, and before that a tour to Sweden. But your chance to see the play in London is now. The Tailor of Inverness is part of the Finborough’s Theatre’s #VoicesFromUkraine, a programming strand set up in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The play runs from 14th May until 8th June, for tickets and further information please go to www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk or contact the Box Office 020 7244 7439. Image above (c) Tim Morozzo