Writer: Rabiah Hussain
Director: Nimmo Ismail
Words are slippery, tricky things, and as Rabiah Hussain shows us, their power wanes and grows depending on the power of the speaker.
The prime minister (floppy-haired and thrice married – take a guess) has gone and said something he shouldn’t once again, and the Downing Street press office is in a flap, trying to coax him back to the office to work on an apology. But to no avail.
Meanwhile, his words have seeped into homes, workplaces and text chats across the nation, their effect almost immediate.
Despite this play being about words, it’s interesting how much Hussain plays with implication versus overtness. For instance, we never actually find out what the Prime Minister said, but through heavy implication, it’s clear his words are about British Muslims, and that it is racist. ‘Racist’ is another word that’s used very lightly. In fact, it isn’t used at all until over halfway through, and yet it hangs heavy over nearly every conversation.
The performances are strong across the ensemble, and without many costume changes, the cast does well to embody various nuanced characters. It’s a treat to see Kosar Ali on stage after her magnetic debut performance in the film Rocks. The stand-out for the evening, though, is Yusra Warsama, switching from unnerving calm to outright rage with a mere eyebrow raise. You can feel her power pulsating on stage even when she isn’t the protagonist.
The first flurry of Downing Street action takes place in a goldfish tank on the far side of the room, untouchable and far away. Thereafter, an assortment of sketches is performed in the main space – the real world – varying from the abstract to the intimately domestic.
The disconnection between the sketches means the play never really comes together as a whole, and in an attempt to avoid the obvious or sentimental, there’s often a sense of shallowness to the message. A PhD student pitching a thesis about words getting physically lodged in the body, while poetic, feels a bit silly, and three friends attending the theatre (displacing three actual audience members) trying to make ‘appropriate’ comments about the Prime Minister’s remark, doesn’t really go anywhere. There are multiple scenes with friends on a message group, talking about the politician, and later talking about all the joys of their culture, but it feels like unnecessary, slightly fluffy filler.
But the script is also wry and witty, and there are occasional moments of perfect joy, as well as painful, nuanced honesty. There’s a lovely scene between two work colleagues talking about their mother tongues slipping out unexpectedly, like an inherited gift. In a “completely detached home in Highgate”, a man argues that while the Prime Minister was wrong of course, the “community” might make more of an effort to fit in, while serving his mother-in-law’s curry recipe (without salt), reminiscent of George Osborne’s 2015 “British curry” statement.
There’s definitely a thematic connection between all these scenes, but in trying to cover such a massive scope of perspectives, the argument is too diluted. Perhaps a stronger more focussed narrative, from which we dip in and out, would give the play a sturdier structure, versus one disparate sketch after the next.
Runs until 26 August 2023
