Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Nowhere
Khalid Abdalla with Fuel
Genre: Biographical Drama, Political
Venue: The Traverse
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Nowhere is a meditation on the difficulties of belonging when nowhere is safe. Abdalla looks at the legacy of imperialism and colonialism that continue to have repercussions on individual lives long after their supposed demise.
Review
Where to start? Khalid Abdalla’s show is intriguing, enlightening and carries an important message. It’s also messy, overlong and frustratingly loses its vital thread at times so that that message is in danger of being lost. It’s a good show with a better show struggling to get out.
Former Prime Minister, Theresa May famously stated “If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere.” But what if you belong nowhere and nowhere is safe? Abdalla draws us into the space, the safe space of theatre where we can collectively explore and consider ideas. For now, this space is nowhere. And we are all safe to examine ideas together.
Nowhere looks at the crises and raptures that occur in the Middle East again and again, through the lens of the Egyptian revolution of 2011 and the continuing genocide in Gaza that followed the attacks of October 7th, at where those crises originated and at what it means to be an Arab in this world.
Set up similarly to a lecture theatre with multiple multi-media devices and projection on stage, Nowhere makes use of digital technology, showing how it allows us to make connections across borders and across the world while balancing this with photos, drawings and paintings to communicate the more personal connections. As he slams down photo after photo, the personal and the political come together and collide – photos of friends and family interspersed with global leaders, Reagan, Thatcher el al. Whatever individual agency we have, our lives are determined by larger forces, and nowhere more so than in the Middle East where British imperialists carved up chunks of land with lines on paper that continue to reverberate in individual lives today.
Abdalla (United 93, The Crown and The Kiterunner) is a consummate storyteller who establishes an easy rapport with the audience. He is, he tells us is from a family of political prisoners; his grandfather was in prison in Egypt in the 50s, his father followed him in the 70s and Abdalla himself tells us of his involvement in the Egyptian revolution in Tahir Square in 2011 and onwards. From his early direct address to the audience to his acting, dancing and chat style asides, Abdalla is never less than engaging.
Technically the show is complicated and seamlessly effective with design from Ti Green, lighting by Jackie Shemesh, sound by Panos Chountotoulidis and video design by Sarah Readman. All come together very slickly. Omar Rajeh provides choreography to add to Abdalla’s storytelling prowess. Omar Elerain’s direction skilfully pulls all these diffuse elements together. It’s an impressive production.
And yet…
Nowhere’s meanderings and digressions are entertaining and enlightening but all together they are just too much. The script gets lost somewhere in the middle and the urgent and important message Abdalla shares with us about the origins of conflict and the possibilities of shared understanding and collective solutions get lost in the cumulative overload.
Nowhere is a tad overlong and a bit messy but then Empire and colonialism was more than a tad overlong and its legacy continues to be very very messy.
