Writer and performer: Khalid Abdalla
Director: Omar Elerian
Khalid Abdalla, Scotland-born actor and activist, brings his solo avant-garde show Nowhere to the Traverse Theatre. Born in Glasgow to an Egyptian family with a long history of political imprisonment, Abdalla carries a legacy of resistance: his grandfather was detained, his father—born in the United States—was also imprisoned for activism, and Abdalla himself both joined the protests of the Arab Spring and was recently interviewed under caution by the Metropolitan Police for joining in a pro-Palestine demonstration in London this January. On screen, he has played Dodi Fayed in The Crown and the lead hijacker in United 93, roles that illustrate the typecasting Arab actors so often face. Nowhere emerges as a response to these tensions: the personal and the political, the history and the present, theatre and the wider world.
The piece unfolds as a densely woven tapestry of stories. Abdalla speaks of family histories of imprisonment and activism, of his own experiences navigating prejudice and stereotype in the acting world, and of his friendship with Aalam, an artist and activist died of cancer, whose presence haunts the performance. Around these intimate threads swirl larger histories: the colonial rule of Lord Cromer in Egypt, the memory of the Arab Spring, the persistence of neoliberalism, and the ongoing violence in Gaza. What results is part memoir, part political history, part elegy.
This complexity is matched by a restless multimedia form that resists linear storytelling. Abdalla moves fluidly between live performance and camera work, audition-like scenes projected behind him. Family photographs merge with archival images and documentary footage. Voiceovers and playlists overlap with personal reflections. He sings, dances, and incorporates physical theatre. At one point, the audience is invited to draw self-portraits without looking, a playful but moving exercise. Nowhere resonates against Theresa May’s infamous declaration: “If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere.” Abdalla reclaims the insult, reshaping it into an identity.
There is a searing moment near the end. A video documents the activist group Led By Donkeys laying out children’s clothes across Bournemouth beach, each garment symbolising a child killed in Gaza. The line stretches endlessly across the sand, leaving the audience with an image that is chilling, visceral, and unforgettable.
Abdalla’s performance is restless, moving rapidly between forms and themes, sometimes so quickly that the connections between its different modes of storytelling feel difficult to establish. Yet this volatility mirrors the chaos of trying to navigate a subject as vast as the one Abdalla attempts to confront. His ambition spans time and geography, shifting across theatrical forms as it traces the legacies of British imperialism and global politics into moments of personal grief and family history. By linking past to present, and the political to the private, the piece reveals its central truth: the imagined “nowhere” of theatre cannot be safe if the world outside is unsafe. Unless we face the roots of violence that tear through the present, theatre cannot seal itself away. Family, empire, protest, and violence are not separate threads but interwoven realities. Without the world—its grief, its struggles, its contradictions—there can be no Nowhere for theatre.
Nowhere is not always tidy, nor is it meant to be. Abdalla draws the audience into a theatre of contradictions, where personal loss collides with political struggle and memory refuses to fade. What remains is a performance as haunting as it is necessary.
Runs until 24 September 2025 | Image: Helen Murray
The Reviews Hub Star Rating
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7
