Word-Play by Rabiah Hussain, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 29 July 2023

The Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square by Stacey Harris, CC BY-SA 2.0

This was our first visit to the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs since before the pandemic. Until then, we were fairly regular visitors to that small space. Our previous visit, in 2019 had been a rare miss for us…

Word-Play was definitely not a miss for us, far from it, although Janie did find the short scenes with the actors playing different characters in different times and places more than a little disconcerting.

But we both agreed that the acting by all five cast members; Issam Al Ghussain, Kosar Ali, Simon Manyonda, Sirine Saba, and Yusra Warsama, was superb. Many of the scenes worked terrifically well, especially the more intimate ones. Word-Play is a very ambitious piece of writing and we shall certainly look out for Rabiah Hussain’s work again.

Here is a link to the Royal Court resource for this play/production.

This link should find plenty of reviews, most of which are good or very good – one or two not so.

It’s running until late August 2023 and we would certainly recommend this innovative piece of theatre if you get to this page in time to get a ticket.