Camden Fringe 2024
The Martyrs
By Joseph Samini and Nojan Khazai
Genre: Dark Comedy, New Writing, Political, Theatre
Venue: Theatre Technis
Festival: Camden Fringe
Low Down
This, at times very dark but also laughing out loud funny comedy-thriller, is a thoroughly enjoyable lesson on the last 40 years of Iranian history and how it interweaves with British history and British politics. A history that is too often conveniently forgotten.
Review
At the start we are reminded by the director, Sepy Baghaei, that we are attending a rehearsed reading. She gives a few pointers to those who are new to this performance type or have forgotten how it works. In two days the actors created this showcase of Joseph Samimi’s (who also takes the role of Ali) and Nojan Khazai’s (who plays Abbas) poignant and thought provoking play set in 1998. With limited props, some stage direction from the sidelines and a lot of imagination we are transported from Berlin to London, where most of the plays narrative happens, but also to Tehran and ultimately to Toronto. The play is gripping, even without set or proper costumes, which is suggesting to me it would make a wonderful radio play and the authors should maybe pitch it to BBC radio.
At first we encounter Ali and Abbas on an assignment in Berlin. The audience is immediately made aware what their jobs are. They are assassins, sent by the Iranian government to silence those people for good, who criticized the regime once too often. The scene is made bearable by the gallows humour of everyone involved. Still, the callous disregard of human life by the Ayatollah, his supporters and henchmen is truly chilling.
The next scene brings us to London. Two students arguing. One, Leyla (Samira Teymouri), is the daughter of Iranian dissidents who were murdered by a car bomb in Istanbul ten years earlier. She is trying to educate the public on what is going on in Iran, so she is trying to collect signatures and failing. Laurence (Reece Webster) is having a go at Leyla. He wants her to give up. He took to the streets and tried to raise awareness with her and no one cared. He says: ‘People care when caring looks good’. In fact he doesn’t care. He is dead keen on Leyla and trying to ingratiate himself with her. The more she ignores his advances the keener he gets. He cares about the Iranian people as long as he thinks that is the way into Leyla’s knickers. It’s just not a cool cause to be involved in. She thinks she needs him. His dad is a bigwig at the BBC and Laurence writes well. Leyla wants to tell the story of her people and she feels only with Laurence’s writing talent and BBC connection can the story be told. Leyla loves the cause and Laurence loves Leyla so they carry on.
Enter Ali and Abbas, sporting a very touristy London sweater each. Leyla and Laurence pounce on them trying to get them to sign their petition. The moment the assassins realise what the cause is for which the signatures are collected, they pounce back, only they do it with guns. Ali and Abbas take the lovelorn English student hostage. He is rescued by Leyla and pepper spray. Ultimately Leyla persuades, Ali and Abbas with some subterfuge to go on the radio and tell what their job is and what the regime is doing to British citizens on British soil.
This is heard by Ali’s and Abba’s commander in Teheran. The Ayatollah is not pleased and demands this to be sorted. Reza, the commander is portrayed in a less than flattering light. He is cruel, arrogant and just plain full of himself. He is also a massive idiot. It is obvious that Lanna Joffrey enjoys this gender bending role and rightly gets many laughs. Since Reza’s two top assassins are gone AWOL in London, he calles the next best agent. A pathetic but also dangerously sadistic guy who is forever moaning about what should be claimable as business expenses. Yasser Zadeh skillfully delivers many of the character’s ridiculous lines absolutely straight.
Abbas uses psychology to get to the still-wet-behind-the-ears Laurence. The ultimate outcome of what follows is a shootout in a basement night club in Kensington, but the story doesn’t end here. When it ends, it ends differently than one would expect.
The performance was deservedly very well received. The audience was enthralled. At one point a young woman in front of me struggled to keep still when Laurence did an obviously stupid thing that lead to him being taken hostage. She lived every moment with the characters. That the story to her was real not just a rehearsed reading, is due to the highly skilled actors giving their all.
Despite the dark topic and the cruelty, this was a thoroughly enjoyable play. The laughs came thick and fast. To be honest, when I signed up for this performance I expected something very different. I assumed it would be a very earnest play about a very serious topic, performed in a static way. However, Samimi and Khazai have created an easily accessible work, that is very educational, but never makes the audience feel like pupils. Baghaei’s direction allowed for the comedy to flourish, but also for serious thoughts to take centre stage. For the example when Leyla, Ali and Abbas muse over what it is to be a martyr. There is space for presenting the Iranian view point to help Westerners understand why the regime in Teheran thinks they have right on their side. Again, it is a willfully narrow reading of history.
The UK did much wrong in that part of the world and coming to terms with the past properly would destroy the image of the saviour of the world that Britain has created for itself by carefully editing history. Since Iran today cannot be understood unless the last 100 years in that region are understood, the topic is often avoided. However with Iran having moved back into the headlines, any zeitgeisty theatre director worth his salt should jump at the chance to produce this play fully staged.
