Notting Hill’s loss is Camden’s gain!
Sami Ibrahim's timely, hard-hitting fable about the UK's inpenetrable, inhumane immigration system is The Gate Theatre's first production in their new Camden home.
Elif (the amazing Sara Hazemi) is a long way from home. With a father murdered by a tyrant’s brutal police, she accepts that she will never see the land of her birth or her mother again.
She earns a precarious and difficult living shearing sheep for a rich landowner and dreams of settling within the city walls. One day a sheep in her care dies and she becomes even more reliant (as an “illegal”) on the good will of the landowner, who has been turning a blind eye to her status.
Elif discovers there is an application process that allows her to apply for official leave to stay. But first she will have to present herself and wait to see the King’s Registrar’s Registrar’s Assistant’s Underling. In a deliberate and unsettling echo of Theresa May’s “Hostile Environment” and the actions of subsequent Home Secretaries, we witness a depiction of a brutal, dehumanising, expensive, and impossibly complicated system that lays waste to the UK's claims to be “welcoming”.
Expertly directed by Yasmin Hafesji, this 70 minute is delivered with skill, commitment and boundless energy by three cast members playing multiple parts. Hazemi's Elif is a hard-working optimist, but also a realist steeped in the desperation of one who has nowhere else to go.
Despite the pressure she is under, she rarely gets angry: cleverly, Ibrahim leaves it to the audience to get angry on her behalf. This modern poetic fable will certainly find a welcoming audience among North London's Guardian-reading Tofuocracy but deserves a wider audience to ensure its message is heard.
It's a strong opener for The Gate's permanent residency at 26, Crowndale Road and a tantalising taste of what's to come.
A Sudden Violent Burst of Rain runs at 26 Crowndale Road, Camden until November 5. https://www.gatetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/a-sudden-violent-burst-of-rain/
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here