Tag Archives: Holly Khan

Duck

Duck

★★★★

Arcola Theatre

DUCK at the Arcola Theatre

★★★★

Duck

“Omar Bynon is charismatic and charming as Ismail”

 

The play follows Ismail throughout the summer of 2005 revelling in his excitement to become the youngest batsman ever to play for the first XI cricket team at his elite public school. However, things don’t quite go to plan when a new coach takes over who seems to take an immediate dislike to Ismail. Whilst the significance of 2005 may be immediately apparent to England cricket fans, what may be less immediately obvious is that this was also the year of the 7/7 bombings, a turning point in the way Muslims and south-Asian people were seen and treated in the UK. Setting the play over this summer provides a unique backdrop for exploring racism in the sport.

Duck’s run at the Arcola Theatre is timely. It aligns with this year’s Ashes, held in the UK just as they were in 2005. More poignantly, opening night coincided with the release of a much-anticipated report into institutional racism in cricket – precipitated by former Yorkshire cricket player Azeem Rafiq’s allegations against the club and whose emotional testimony at a select committee hearing in 2021 made national headlines. Parts of the script almost directly reference this testimony, particularly related to arguments often made by those using racial slurs that it’s just ‘banter’.

Despite this heavy subject matter, the writing is peppered with humour throughout. Duck’s writer, maatin, focuses on Muslim storytelling and says much of the play is based on his own experiences. The script feels authentic to both the worlds Ismail occupies, that of public-school boys and his Indian family at home, and astutely captures the vernacular used in the two.

Omar Bynon is charismatic and charming as Ismail, bringing the audience in from the off with a toss of the ball into the crowd with a decent amount of spin, deftly instructed by movement director Hamza Ali. It’s an energetic performance, requiring Bynon to play not just Ismail but his father, best friend and the new cricket team coach, as well as voicing two commentators that act as a Greek chorus. Bynon’s only respite comes towards the end when real people voice the impact the 7/7 bombings had on their lives – a powerful interlude that drives the plays message home.

The set and costume design (Maariyah Sharjil) are beautifully presented. A central patch of astroturf, complete with wicket, bat, and red test ball, act as an anchor for the set, whilst either side hanging drapes are backdrops for bespoke, illustrated projections which transport the action from the cricket pavilion to the duck pond. On one side, the script is projected for accessibility. This also helps to distinguish between the characters the lead flips between where this is not always clear.

Despite being overtly a play about cricket, you don’t need to know much about the sport to enjoy this play. Yes, there are plenty of ‘in’ jokes about models of cricket bats, former players, and commentators to keep cricket fans chuckling throughout. But at its heart, Duck is a coming-of-age tale of the adolescent realisation that the safe and simple world you think you know is not all it appears. Not all figures of authority will look out for your best interests. Biases mean that pure talent is not always appreciated. As affectingly put by Ismail, cricket may be a team sport but really, it’s just you and the bowler out there.

 

Reviewed on 29th July 2023

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Isha Shah

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

 

Possession | ★★★★★ | June 2023
Under The Black Rock | ★★★ | March 2023
The Mistake | ★★★★ | January 2023
The Poltergeist | ★★½ | October 2022
The Apology | ★★★★ | September 2022
L’Incoronazione Di Poppea | ★★★★ | July 2022
Rainer | ★★★★★ | October 2021
The Game Of Love And Chance | ★★★★ | July 2021
The Narcissist | ★★★ | July 2021

 

Click here to read all our latest reviews

 

Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park

★★★★

Watermill Theatre

MANSFIELD PARK at the Watermill Theatre

★★★★

Mansfield Park

“Strong performances by Nicholle Cherrie as Fanny and Anni Domingo as Mary Prince are the heart of this impassioned and enjoyable show.”

 

‘The stately homes of England / How beautiful they stand / To prove the upper classes / Have still the upper hand’. So sang Noël Coward in a famously ironic lyric about the decline that led to many of these grand houses being left to the National Trust. Jane Austen’s ‘Mansfield Park’ is named after one such house, and was her third novel, published in 1814. As the National Trust has only recently acknowledged, many of these properties are intimately linked with the long and shameful history of British colonialism and enslavement.

Austen wrote her novel at a critical time in the struggle against slavery and it contains many hidden references to it. Austen herself was arguably an abolitionist and one of her favourite poems proclaimed ‘We have no slaves at home – then why abroad?’. The trade in slaves was abolished seven years before she wrote Mansfield Park, but slavery itself was not abolished by Britain until 19 years later.

Austen’s plot concerns a newly wealthy family who own a plantation in Antigua. Young Fanny Price is sent to live with her aunt and uncle at Mansfield Park where she falls in love with a cousin and is the subject of unwelcome attentions from the scheming Henry Crawford. Eventually she marries her cousin Edmund.

Two Gents Company has its roots in Zimbabwe, and in this highly original and provocative adaptation, co-writers and directors Tonderai Munyevu and Arne Pohlmeier place the stain of slavery in the spotlight. Fanny Price’s story is interweaved with that of Mary Prince, the first black woman to publish an autobiography describing her experience as a slave.

The style of the piece is inspired by apartheid era South African workshop theatre. It is being performed outdoors in the Watermill garden and the current run was preceded by a short tour to venues which included Jane Austen’s own house. Props and staging are kept simple and the always-present cast talk directly to the audience. Periodically they drop out of the play to provide commentary on it.

Strong performances by Nicholle Cherrie as Fanny and Anni Domingo as Mary Prince are the heart of this impassioned and enjoyable show. Cherrie’s work as Voice Captain shows in the vivid clarity of her engagement with the audience. In her performance, Fanny is a feisty and assertive woman typified by her exclamation at ‘the pain of falling in love with this wet man!’ Anni Domingo brings great soul and much pathos to her part as the enslaved Mary Prince.

Olivier award-winning Wela Mbusi is a commanding presence and the best cast of three who play the slave-owner Sir Thomas Bertram. In other scenes Mbusi swaps with great agility from male to female character, even playing both sides of a conversation between a man and a woman in one nicely comic scene. The remainder of the cast is made up by the accomplished Velile Tshabalala, who takes on five roles, and by Duramaney Kamara, six.

In Louise Worrall’s conceptually inspired set, on-stage action is literally framed by a great gilt picture frame beneath which a set of glistening white cube shaped furniture evokes the sugar trade.

In the first half I wasn’t at all sure why the play didn’t simply bring to life the important story of Mary Prince instead of mixing it in with this less impressive example of Jane Austen’s ‘sweet tooth for love and marriage’. But in the second half the tension within and between the two parallel stories comes to the fore with some winningly powerful writing and performance.

This interesting and polemical play ends with a passionate defence of the ‘woke’ in a scene in which Mary Prince and Jane Austen meet. ‘Beneath it all there’s blood, real blood. That blood is in our memory.’

 

 

Reviewed on 29th July 2023

by David Woodward

Photography by Nigel Glasgow

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

 

Rapunzel | ★★★★ | November 2022
Whistle Down The Wind | ★★★★ | July 2022
Spike | ★★★★ | January 2022
Brief Encounter | ★★★ | October 2021

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