LAMPOONED by the likes of Saturday Night Live, Benny Hill and Police Squad in the 1970s and 1980s, Idi Amin’s portrayal as an eccentric buffoon was often criticised as detracting from the barbarity of his regime as President of Uganda. Nepotism, corruption and gross economic mismanagement aside, his dictatorship of the former British colony was marked by extra-judicial killings and ethnic and political persecution. According to Amnesty International, about 500,000 people lost their lives under his reign.

Jaimini Jethwa’s family, then, were lucky. They got out. In 1972, the year after he grabbed the east African state in a coup and declared himself president, Amin expelled 60,000 Ugandan Asians. About half came to the UK, some settling around the refugee camp in Kent. Some, like the parents of Jethwa, then an infant, made it as far north as Dundee.

“Jaimini immediately struck me as unusual when we first met,” says Jemima Levick, director of The Last Queen of Scotland, currently at the Fringe as part of the Made In Scotland showcase following a preview at Dundee Rep last month. “She had an unusual heritage in that she was Ugandan Asian, but she was so clearly Scottish too. She was the broadest Dundonian I had met in my entire time there – and I was there for seven years. I was like: ‘I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

Jethwa would have been growing up in the city’s Fintry council estate while Dundee Rep’s community outreach officer, Amanda Lowson, was growing up in neighbouring Whitfield.

“I asked Amanda whether she was aware of any people from Uganda,” says Levick. “But although Whitfield was diverse in terms of there being people from England, from Wales, from different parts of Scotland, she said that, apart from one boy at school she thought was West Indian, she wasn’t aware of any people of colour. That fascinated me, that Jaimini had grown up looking different, in an environment that was maybe quite tricky. But she would have been pretty much the only brown girl around really, apart from her brothers and sisters.”

The pair met while Levick was artistic director at Dundee Rep, and keen to hear from writers from the city. Now artistic director and chief executive of Stellar Quines, Levick says she hopes to tour The Last Queen of Scotland, which was co-commissioned and supported by the National Theatre of Scotland and the Rep. It’s likely that Jethwa’s story, and that of the wider Ugandan Asian community in exile, will be new to many.

Levick says: “When Jaimini told me she wanted to write a play about Idi Amin, and a girl being haunted by him, that really struck me as the film The Last King of Scotland hadn’t been long out.

“She told me of her family’s experience as part of the Ugandan Asian expulsion, and the decisions they had made to get to Dundee. When she left, I have to admit that I did some speedy Google searching, as I didn’t know a huge amount about it before. It was such an interesting story about Idi Amin and her relationship with him and the fact that her family had come to Scotland as refugees.”

Performed by Rehanna MacDonald to a live soundtrack by Patricia Panther, a musician particularly acclaimed for her work on Cora Bissett’s Glasgow Girls, The Last Queen of Scotland challenges Amin’s claims on Scotland and explores Jethwa retracing her family’s steps back to Kampala, a recent experience which prompted more questions than answers.

Casting was, Levick says, “a nightmare”. There was little question of Jethwa playing herself; for the film maker and playwright, this was about writing. As fictionalised elements were threaded into the play’s development, its central character was becoming someone slightly removed from her too. It was time to look for professional actors.

“People were saying: ‘What are you going to do about casting? You’ve got to find an Indian girl who’s got a bona fide Dundonian accent – there aren’t any!” says Levick. MacDonald, from East Kilbride, was a recent graduate of the Welsh College of Acting and Drama. The director knew immediately she was right for the part. “She did this amazingly good Dundonian accent and we knew we had our actress,” says Levick, after recalling, with a wry laugh: “Quite early doors I was saying to Jaimini: ‘Have you got any brothers or sisters who’d like to act? Any cousins?’ It was a relief to find Rehanna, and we’re very lucky.”

The Last Queen of Scotland, until Aug 26 (not tomorrow) , Underbelly, Cowgate, (V61), 6.50pm, £12 and £14 (£11 and £13 concs). Tel: 0131 226 0000. edfringe.com