“You never see Superman going out to get a pint of milk or at the laundrette or brushing his teeth, do you? Well, my dad was kind of a hero like that – he was never round for the ordinary stuff, he was always out there, saving the world.”

Nick Makoha's doctor father was absent for much of his childhood, travelling the world for his work, and the young cartoon and comic book fan found heroes such as Superman and Spider-Man inadvertently provided the blueprints of how to be a good father in the absence of the real thing.

When the adult Nick held his newborn daughter in his arms for the first time and felt an overwhelming rush of love for her, it made him question how his own father, Fred – a gynaecologist, paediatrician and surgeon – could have forgone that love for his career. And the idea for his show My Father and Other Superheroes was born.

“I was doing some poetry and theatre workshops a few years ago,” remembers Nick, now 40, “and I was telling these stories and I realised that more and more of them were about my life as a child without my father. I thought ‘Ah, so that’s what I’m writing about’.”

The show, a mixture of physical theatre and spoken word, tells the story of his childhood and with the help of four superheroes – Superman, Luke Skywalker, Batman and the Hulk. Nick takes us on the rollercoaster of his emotions from growing up missing his father to uncovering what it takes to be a father himself, and also how to forgive.

Nick was born in Uganda under Idi Amin’s regime and the family had to flee the country, moving to Kenya and then to Saudi Arabia and the UK for his father’s work.

“My dad was always out saving people’s lives,” says Nick. “In our tradition it’s important that you look after the community. I was with him in Uganda one time and, literally from sun-up to sun-down, he was just helping people. And it suddenly occurred to me – he’s not just my hero, he’s a hero to many other people as well. But I hadn’t seen him like that when I was a child, it was just ‘Argh, where’s my dad?’”

Nick wrote the first version of My Father and Other Superheroes in 2013 and was delighted when it got funding and directors and theatres expressed an interest, but was perplexed when his friends and others involved in the production suggested the story wasn’t quite finished.

“They were politely saying to me ‘Why are you so angry with your dad?’” Nick remembers, “and I’d shout back that I wasn’t! The first incarnation of the script didn’t feature me forgiving my dad. It was good but it wasn’t fulfilling the arc of the story – I had to forgive my dad.”

Nick’s father has been to see the final version of the show – complete with forgiveness – twice. “It wasn’t easy for him to watch,” Nick admits, “but he said it was good that I’d chosen to express what I felt in a creative rather than a destructive form.”

As well as his father, Nick also made the show for his children – his daughter Olivia, who is now ten, and his son Iden, four.

“My daughter was in the front row and she couldn’t take her eyes off me,” Nick says. “There’s this scene where I talk about her and it was so hard to do – I remember crying and I could see she was moved too.”

How does Nick think his children see him as a father? Like a superhero, as he did with his dad?

“I think all kids do,” he says. “They wake up in the night, scared, and they want their daddy, you’re the person who protects them from the dark and watches over them while they sleep. That’s what kids want from their parents – to know that there’s somebody in this world in their corner.

“I get it right sometimes! I can be a bit strict at times but I tell them I love them every day, and the best part of my day is rushing home to see them and put them to bed.”

  • My Father and Other Superheroes is at Brent Cultural Centre, Alexandra Avenue, Harrow on Wednesday, February 18 at 2.30pm. Details: 020 8937 1234, brentcouncilarts.eventbrite.co.uk