THE BRITISH AMBASSADOR'S BELLY DANCER. To 23 February.
London.
THE BRITISH AMBASSADOR’S BELLY DANCER
by Craig Murray, Nadira Murray and Alan Hescott.
Arcola Theatre (Arcola 2) 27 Arcola Street E8 2DJ To 2 February.
Tue-Sat 8.15pm.
then Arts Theatre 6-7 Great Newport Street WC2H 7JB 4-23 February 2008.
Runs 1hr 20min No interval.
TICKETS: 020 7503 1646.
www.arcola.com (Arcola)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 12 January.
A dance to the music of sour times.
With sex and politics in the title this ought to have appeal. As an empire fell, prisoners were tortured and a diplomat was unjustly dismissed, Nadira Murray’s tri-authored script sticks to her personal story. A few extracts from her ambassador-husband’s book apart, this is the Ambassador’s wife speaking; except when the Ambassadors’ Wife dances.
Nadira’s actor-parents went from being regarded as honoured Soviet artists to useless members of newly-independent Uzbekistan. Starvation was only staved off by her father’s descent into vodka and heroin, trafficking the latter in the 10-year old girl’s underwear (the contents of Nadira’s underwear recur through the show).
Sexually abused by clergy and police, yet managing to retain her virginity (a social besides personal necessity), Nadira used her natural skill in the kind of dance-venue where audiences showed appreciation by sticking money into her few available items of clothing.
Unsuprisingly, the dancers despised these customers. What changed her view of Our Man In Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, was his visiting an unprotected old woman, facing-down the thugs who threatened her.
Life at the Embassy (Craig’s first wife is sidelined in half a sentence) ends when he criticises evidence gained by the Uzbeks under torture as morally and factually wrong. Sacked, the pair come to London in a select destitution where Craig can lay his hand on a hundred quid to buy her out of a pole-dancing session. For Nadira, a chess-champion speaking five languages, could only find work in a club where more clothes were taken off for less money than back home.
Her inconclusive story includes a couple of dance-sequences, the first showing how a dancer flirts with an audience, the second an expression of freedom: the first time as strategy, the second time as art.
The material’s more interesting as biography than drama: how much are the pleading, appalled, justifying tones themselves a strategy? But the Murrays have been left to stage their own story. The liberal theatre establishment beat a way to their door then did nothing. And, Sir David Hare: that dress by your designer wife you promised Nadira: she’s still waiting for it.
Performer: Nadira Murray.
Voice-over: Craig Murray.
Director: Thomas Hescott.
Designer: Carrie Southall.
Lighting: Richard Howell.
2008-01-13 22:16:50