THE BLACK ALBUM.
London/Tour.
THE BLACK ALBUM
by Hanif Kureishi.
Cottesloe Theatre South Bank SE1 9PX in rep to 6 October
then tour
7.30; mats 2.30pm, Sats and Wed (see website for details)
Audio-described 5 Sept 5 2.30pm.
Runs: 2hr 20min One interval.
TICKETS 020 7452 3000.
www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/tickets
Review: Carole Woddis 23 July.
Radical dullness.
People have often argued that for the National Theatre to fulfill its remit it should be a national theatre in more than a name. It should fully represent the society in which we live.
To that extent, Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album, sitting alongside Richard Bean’s controversial England People Very Nice shows the Muslim constituency is by no means being ignored. Neither play, however, does them any favours. If Stephens pillories them alongside his other racial and religious stereotypes, Kureishi and Jatinder Verma’s Tara Arts (British’s most venerable British-Asian company) diminish them through artistic mediocrity.
Kureishi’s first claim to fame was as an angry, confrontational if slightly crude playwright. Time has obviously mellowed him. But The Black Album, adapted from his novel, shows few lessons learnt in terms of creating dynamic, credible theatre.
The aim is laudable enough: to show the making of the British Muslim as writer, set against the radicalisation of young British Muslims. As such, it must surely be based in autobiography and what Kureishi himself underwent growing up with creative aspirations.
Shahid Hasan arrives in London from Sevenoaks during the `swinging 60s’. We watch him acquiring a sentimental and political education through the 70s up to 7/07 via `committed’ left-wing British Marxists, a group of naïve but curious young British Muslims and his family.
Set in Tim Hatley’s cheap-looking room (which becomes a useful tool onto which to project Shahid’s hallucinogenic, druggy experiences), the play as political and social history tries to show British Muslim radicalisation but stalls through flat-footed dialogue and dramatic inconsistency.
Kureishi’s characters, even at their dialectical best – and there are a couple of good debates after the interval concerning censorship and the pros and cons of the 1989 fatwa – simply lack credibility or logic. Events happen without characters responding to them in any humanly convincing or joined up way.
As Shahid, Jonathan Bonnici has a youthful Slumdog Millionaire quality. Tanya Franks too manages to make something out of the thankless task of Shahid’s sexual mentor and hedonistic older woman activist, Deedee Osgood.
But overall, it’s a dispiriting two and a half hours.
Shahid Hasan: Jonathan Bonnici.
Strapper: Glyn Pritchard.
Riaz al Hussain: Alexander Andreou.
Hat: Beruce Khan.
Chad: Nitin Kundra.
Deedee Osgood: Tanya Franks.
Andrew Brownlow: Sean Gallagher.
Chili: Robert Mountford.
Zulma/Tahira: Shereen Martineau.
Director: Jatinder Verma.
Designer: Tim Hatley.
Lighting/Video: Jvan Morandi.
Sound: Fergus O’Hare.
Music: Sister Bliss.
Music Associate: John Gingell.
Video Content Producers: Tom Hadley,Sara Nestruk.
Choreographer: Shobana Jeyasingh.
Costume: Claudia Mayer.
Fight director: Alison de Burgh.
Company voice work: Jeannette Nelson.
2009-08-07 23:56:16