Playwright Jasmine Naziha Jones’s piece tells her Iraqi father’s story through her eyes as a child and later a university student. She was born here and has never set foot in her dad’s homeland. It’s a clever idea given an audacious production by Milli Bhatia.
Her father came to the UK as a student, before the wars which ravaged his country three times – the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq by the USA and friends. He watched from afar, upset and frustrated, venturing closer but never back, so our reports from Iraq are second and third hand. It starts as they celebrate young Quarren’s 8th birthday at McDonalds and ends there when she is home from university. In between three ‘clowns’ direct the action, giving it an absurdist quality.
Towards the end we have two monologues, from Quareen and her dad, which single out ‘the west’ in a rather simplistic, subjective tirade which seemed to me me to let Saddam, and others, off the hook. My other problem with it is that the production swamped and buried the story, which was a shame as it’s an ambitious and original playwriting debut, served by fine performances, especially from the writer as Quareen and Philip Arditti as her dad.
Despite its flaws, I admired its ambition.
Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog 
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