“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.
“There is humanity and tragedy in the piece, but despite the magnificent performances, the emotional punch is too tender”
It is 1735, and life on St Kilda – in the far reaches of the Outer Hebrides – is pretty stark. And everything smells and tastes of fish. It is an abandoned isle, populated by abandoned people. A place where the crashing waves erode the shoreline and, if you let it, the spirit. But not so Lady Grange, the central figure of Sue Glover’s play based on the real-life wife of the eighteenth-century Lord Grange. A Shakespearean mix of King Lear and Miranda, she whips up her own storm that threatens to silence the unrelenting winds that sweep in from all sides of the island.
Lady Grange was exiled by her estranged husband to the Outer Hebrides, on the basis that she was hysterical, drunk, disorderly and uncivilised. In truth she knew too much about her husband; his Jacobite sympathies shrouded by hypocrisy and political pragmatism. Better she go and rage against the storm in isolation, rather than upset his veneered city life.
The turmoil is all internal and the interest promised by the historical facts doesn’t translate entirely successfully here. Anna Short’s sound design evokes the peace of the farmyard rather than the ravaged sentiments of the central character. The first act serves mainly to set the scene, into which Aneas, a bible-clutching minister and his new wife, Isabel come on a mission. Isabel, all innocence and compliance, is initially the antithesis of Lady Grange. What Glover’s writing cleverly reveals, however, is how the two women have more in common than we originally think. Along with Oona, Grange’s maid, the three women are all trapped in their own gender-defying roles of the time.
Siobhan Redmond is a force as the unhinged Grange – sexual and dangerous; one minute syrup and flirtation, the next acid and acrimony. Redmond portrays a Hamlet-like figure: mad at the world rather than mad within one’s head. Rori Hawthorn is equably believable as Isabel; an ember in the shadow of Finlay Bain’s surreptitiously domineering Aneas, yet Hawthorn reveals the flickers of a burning injustice. The flames fanned by Redmond’s powerful performance.
But it takes until the second act for the momentum to really take hold. Jenny Lee, wonderful as the no-nonsense Oona, is drawn into the fold and the play now belongs to the women. Polly Creed’s direction is finally allowed to flourish, particularly as the trio bond over shared whisky and dissatisfaction. Glover’s underlying comments on gender and power are unleashed as the tongues are loosened, while Bain takes a generous back step, yet without relinquishing his masterful portrayal of the steadfast missionary.
“The Straw Chair” is a play that demands attention, although it does take a while to grab it. Its hold on us is tenuous, but if it lapses, we are soon lured back in, with the added help of some plaintive music. As well as commanding the stage, Hawthorn (with co-violinist, Elisabeth Flett) provides a lyrical, pre-recorded underscore. There is humanity and tragedy in the piece, but despite the magnificent performances, the emotional punch is too tender. We want to hear the waves crash, rather than lap, on the rocky Hebridean shoreline.
