The Egyptian city from which the effervescent Adam Kashmiry hails boasts a mermaid as its civic symbol: part girl, part fish; neither one thing or another. A bit like Adam, a connoisseur of contranyms, who as a young trans man realised from an early age: “I feel I would be a better boy than a girl.”

The Scottish city to which he fled in order to seek asylum boasts a coat of arms comprising a bird that never flew, a tree that never grew, a bell that never rang and a fish that never swam. Four symbols of stagnation whose motto lies at the heart of the National Theatre of Scotland’s powerful screen adaptation of their award-winning stage play: “Let Glasgow (and by extension Adam and all trans people) Flourish”.

A sentiment echoed by The Adam World Choir of over a hundred trans and non-binary volunteers who in concert with Jocelyn Pook’s enchanting Arabic score stir the emotions with their closing refrains of “we are real”, “we understand”, “all of us are just people, extraordinary people”.

Shunned by his parents, correctively raped by his employer and driven to self-harm after living in constant fear of his life should he dare to honour his parents’ “contract” to “always tell the truth”, the bird and the tree and the bell and the fish languishing in the depths of his soul are electrified into life by a secret internet search which confirms “there were other people like me”.

But unfortunately for people like Adam, there were people like Theresa May whose “hostile environment” towards migrants exacerbated rather than alleviated their suffering with increasing demands for evidence which were nigh on impossible to satisfy. For example, how can he prove he lived as a man if doing so would have endangered his life? How can he prove he was sexually assaulted if reporting such an incident would have risked imprisonment?

Trapped in a catch-22 where he is unable to transition until he is granted asylum and yet unable to prove his need for asylum as a trans man until he transitions, he fires back: “Do you take selfies when you are scared?” Computer, in the form of a two-dimensional claims officer, doesn’t even have the courtesy to say no.

Written by Frances Poet and co-directed by Cora Bissett and Louise Lockwood, this unsettling yet uplifting drama – which after premiering on BBC Scotland will be shown on BBC Four as part of the corporation’s Culture in Quarantine initiative – switches back and forth in time between Adam’s childhood in Egypt and his purgatory in Glasgow as he engages in a series of dreamlike duologues with Egyptian Adam (Yasmin Al-Khudhairi) in order to explore the fundamental question he posed on the internet: “Can the soul of a man be trapped in the body of a woman?”

And soul is what this hour-long drama has in abundance as it successfully negotiates the transition from stage to screen through a subtle synthesis of heartbreak and humour as demonstrated by the eight-strong cast (notably Adam Kashmiry and Myriam Acharki as his conservative mother) and the sterling creative team who include cinematographer Carlo D’Alessandro, designer Emily James and lighting designer Lizzie Powell.

As many of the internet stories which sang to Adam “like a beautiful choir” confirmed, coming out can be “mind-boggling” and “frightening”. But as he strides through the dear green place of Glasgow as a “real” and “understood” Scotsman, the happiness, relief and inner peace he exudes is living proof that in the words of the global movement to uplift, empower and connect LGBTQ+ youth: it gets better.

Peter Callaghan
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