FringeReview UK 2026

Ukraine Unbroken

Arcola Theatre, Dalston

Genre: Adaptation, Biographical Drama, Contemporary, Drama, European Theatre, Feminist Theatre, Historical, International, Live Music, Mainstream Theatre, New Writing, Online performance, Political, Short Plays, Solo Play, Theatre, Translation

Venue: Arcola Theatre, Studio 1

Festival: FringeReview UK

Low Down

Review

What do people think of the war before the war before the last? Except all still rage, and on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine, the five commissioned plays that make up Ukraine Unbroken remind us we can’t forget the most existential crisis to threaten Ukraine and Europe since 1989. Nicolas Kent commissioned and directs four of the five short plays written by Jonathan Myerson, David Edgar, Natalka Vorozhbyt (directed by Victoria Gartner), David Greig, Cat Goscovitch. They run at the Arcola’s Studio 1 till March 28.

It follows Kent’s decision in 2014 to commission and direct 12 plays about Afghanistan. Such initiatives are rarer than they should be. At the moment it’s the Arcola who leads on producing or hosting plays of political and ethical dimensions most others flinch from.

Three dramatists – Edgar, Vorozhbyt (of e.g. Bad Roads fame at the Royal Court, 2017), and Greig, are very well-known theatre writers. Myerson too though often more on radio and TV. And it’s TV where Goscovitch is most visible.

Heading all this is a video link which brings up surtitles and bandura player Mariia Petrovska. Though just 11 when the 2013 Maidan demonstration – occasioning Myerson’s play – took place, Petrovska is steeped in Ukraine’s struggle: not least Stalin’s attempt to exterminate all bandura players. Nationally distinct music-making was to be erased. Before memorably appearing at the Finborough (that notable champion of Ukraine theatre) following performances of Inna Goncharova’s  The Trumpeter in July-August 2024, Petrovska returned to Ukraine to perform for troops on the front line. She’s eloquent, a superb performer; and provides both a cultural enhancement of Ukraine experience and a helpful easing-in to scene changes between each play. Notably, she performs a poem by poet, novelist and war-crimes investigator Victoria Amelina, who died of injuries sustained by a missile aged 37 on July 1 2023.

Michael Taylor’s set and costumes, initially unassuming (a hotel room) become increasingly impressive: a hunting lodge, a darkened room spectrally lit by Matt Eagland, and an abandoned schoolroom which variously does service for the last two plays, with different windows. Joe Dines’ sound and video, apart from serving Petrovska’s transmission, explodes viscerally. Dines manages something impressive with a chandelier.

Taking each play on its merits, those engaging with the human drama, one from personal experience, linger most. All actors take some central role over the evening.

Jonathan Myerson Always

An anonymous hotel room. Room service isn’t quite what it might be Safiya (Sally Giles) interrogates husband Petro (David Michaels) on his hesitations over the Maidan demonstrations. Where their son is below in the square pitched with other protesters  at the Russian-friendly president. It’s Ukraine’s outing of him that leads to the first invasion. Petro, all reason, is shifty and it’s with two agents Jaromir (Daniel Betts) and Sniper (Ian Bonar) that the extent of his complicity – and ignorance – is laid bare. There’s a fine twist at the end, though given the brutality of such men, it’s a wonder to some that Sofiya isn’t shot for wrestling with Bonar’s Sniper. Possibly because it’s not 2022 and she’s the wife of a prominent ‘friendly’ MP.

Perhaps because of the political exposition from Sofiya to Petr then the others, Always despite its dramatic premiss doesn’t quite take off to hit where you hope it might; though Betts is impressive as the reassuringly sinister Jaromir. Being the first, it feels like a warming-up. Much as tragically the Maidan protests proved themselves.

David Edgar Five Day War

February 2022. The little-known story of how a Ukraine puppet government was prepared by Russia after a five-day war is ingeniously realised by Edgar with a mordant edge to it. Various ministers are brought together and given code-names. It’s clear that Victor (Bonar) is informally interviewing each of them for the top job, and each jostles. It takes place in a hunting lodge curated by Jade Williams, the (as we discover) Russian-friendly landlady and more intriguing daughter Yulia (Clara Read).

Foxtrot (a sardonic vodka-sluicing Betts) seems the equal of Bonar, but is interestingly wrong-footed by wily India (a droll and sassy Giles) who’s only ever held cultural positions. Michaels as Echo though first seems bumbly and unassuming, a little like his role as Petro, with a similar character. But he proves different: grandson of a war-hero killed defending the area, in Michaels’ hands he assumes moral proportions you’d not expect; and pulls surprises of his own. Again some mightn’t enjoy this Russian-doll approach, but it’s clever intrigue, up to Edgar’s best in miniature.

Natalka Vorozhbyt Three Mates, translated by Sasha Dugdale

Helmed by associate director Victoria Gartner, Bonar gleams in virtual darkness in a monologue as Andriy: of a man who didn’t run to Vienna like his friend Yarik; yet didn’t sign up on day one like their mate Max; who’s been fighting four years and like Yarik sends very different messages, though has just fallen silent. And Andriy isn’t alone: there’s his silent wife Olga (Williams) in reality safely in he UK, but here just once laughs. It’s unsettling.

Even without Olga Andriy isn’t alone; there’s his conscience. Skulking in Kyiv as he recounts, he’s draft-dodging. Neither shamefully paying to leave but getting his wife to safety, nor yet joining up, he tosses about in memories, desires and rationales. It’s specific, spectral and impressive. A work you’d expect from a master of monologues, as in Bad Roads, with its sliver of sexual references that Vorozhbyt renders so unnerving.

David Greig Wretched Things

The kind of play you’d expect, a military one, lands a quandary in Greig’s mostly three-hander. With a title taken from the Iliad (from Book 24, Greig’s translation, riffing on wanton boys, gods and sport), three Ukraine soldiers come across a Korean (a mute Read). Sarge (Michaels) a lecturer is full of intentional law: the Korean must be taken to safety even at the expense of life. Betts’ Sasha, a plumber is nonplussed and writer Dimya (Bonar) proves an antagonist to Sarge’s moral imperatives.

Neitzsche is brought in at one point. Despite their evident professionalism these aren’t vocational soldiers but with at least two, the kind of intellectuals found in any world war. It’s a gripping piece, with a climax out of O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars, though in this case there’s less inevitability and it isn’t quite earned. However Dimya’s response is believable. A pithy, if very slightly flawed piece fully worthy of Greig: otherwise consummate and superbly acted.

Cat Goscovitch Taken

Alongside Three Mates, the best is though, last. Based on the atrocity of kidnapping over 20,000 Ukraine children and forcibly ‘Russian-ising’ them, Taken offers a glimpse of one mother’s attempts to wrest her daughter back. After a touching first scene in besieged Mariupol in 2022, where a schoolfriend has already been killed, we find Anna (Williams) trying to celebrate her daughter’s twelfth birthday. She and Lilya (Read) interact with a momentarily exquisite attempt at break-dancing on the abyss. They’re interrupted by a soldier (Betts) rounding up children

Taken is based on research and as Goscovitch relates on a podcast (Jewish Renaissance) a Christian Fundamentalist set up an organisation to help parents track down their children, and claim them through subterfuge. With new families and teaching them how to strop Kalashnikovs for example, indoctrination is inevitable. Especially if you’re told your father as been killed and your mother no longer wants you. Olena (Giles) takes Anan through all kinds of  surveillance and helps her identify where Lilya is, what to say.

Up against a sly Russian handler Dmitry (Bonar) Anna goes through these formulae. Yet there’s Russian snares to fall at including TV Presenter Michaels who wants Anna to say a few words. It’s a pervasive culture. Only this week British influencers and others leaving Dubai have all been speaking from the same script of gratitude to the UAE. Anna’s dilemma though doesn’t end till the last moment.

The first two, longer plays furnish the expositional rationales of war. Inevitably they don’t engage as deeply as the more visceral and compact latter three, but the Edgar in particular deserves praise for taking on unpromisingly dry material and making it mordant, entertaining, and funny. It’s a bravura piece.

Three Mates, the only piece written by a Ukraine writer (at least one more would have been welcome) is an absolutely authentic slice of Kyiv living and dodging. It has documentary value outside its context; but more, it pulses with humanity. Wretched Things scoops up and won’t let go. And in Taken we have a drama not only (again) of documentary value, but in dramatising these dilemmas so acutely, Goscovitch proves herself a theatre-writer we’ve seen too little of.

Petrovska’s riveting performances and witness only intensify the overall experience. The Arcola has led the way as ever; but this needs lungs to bellow way beyond Dalston.

An absorbing evening; essential theatre.

Casting Director Nadine Rennie CDG, Story Support for Mariia Petrovska John Farndon, Assistant Director Maryna Kursik, Production Manager Joe Prentice, Stage Manager (on book) Naomi Shanson, ASM Ryan Denton, Costumer Supervisor Alex Moore, Assistant to the Designer Rebecca Ward.

Published March 6, 2026 by Simon Jenner