Andrew Whaley was in the forefront of post-independent Zimbabwean dramatists, with plays like The Nyoka Tree, Platform 5, and Fiasco, as well as multi-media performances like Human Tales, Meteoric Trails, and screenplays: Yellow Card, More Time, Everyone’s Child. After moving to South Africa in 2001 he developed radio and television drama all over Africa including the hugely popular Swahili series, Siri ya Mtungi, and co-produced an African football documentary, Black Stars: An African Odyssey for Channel 4, UK. The BBC broadcast his plays, Great Escape and Banished: Mugabe of Zimbabwe. He directed There Is No Canaan On Earth for BBC Spice Taxi. He wrote a book on South African pop diva, Brenda Fassie, and co-authored The Vuvuzela Revolution: Anatomy of South Africa’s 2010 World Cup.

Fiasco was first performed in Harare in March 1990. The play won an Edinburgh Festival Fringe First that year. It was published by Anvil Books, and then Methuen in its first anthology of contemporary African theatre.