Out of Bounds by Rajesh Gopie. The Brockley Jack Studio Theatre, 410 Brockley Road, London SE4 until 02 August 2025, 4☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

Photo Credit: Henry Roberts.

Out of Bounds by Rajesh Gopie. The Brockley Jack Studio Theatre, 410 Brockley Road, London SE4 until 02 August 2025,

4☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

“Splendidly performed enlightening play about a young Asian South African's life during the apartheid years.”

Jason Sardinha gives a dazzlingly and assured performance playing 20 characters in this play by Rajesh Gopie about a young South African Indian Lali Laichind coping with growing in in a suburb of Durban surrounded by his vast family during the apartheid years in the 1980s. It casts a light on what happened to the Asian population – people know about how black Africans fared, know all about Nelson Mandela but there were other communities living there and actually prospering who had to face up to white rule. Written in 2001 the play, which won the Fleur du Cap Award that year for Best New Indigenous Script is as topical today as it was then. Director Clare Stopford staged the play with Gopie playing the role of Lali when she was running the Market Theatre in Durban. She did not direct it then, but has seized on the chance to do so and give Sardinha, an Australian actor, a chance to make what she righfully says is a sparkling debut on the theatre scene here. The world of the Asian families in which the men were tough, the women subservent was harsh and difficult, and the problems of growing up were compounded by the apartheid regime. Sardina conjures up Lali's family of bullying uncles, an ineffectual father and the doting oppressed women perfectly and the simple set which manages to transform itself using back projections and a swift change of some simple props, adds to the impact. This is one not to be missed.

Cast

Jason Sardinha

Vkinn Vats.

Creatives

Director – Clare Stopford

Lighting & Sound Designer – Beril Yavuz