Review: The Black Album at the National Theatre, London
It may not be the best page-to-stage adaptation ever to have graced the National Theatre. It may not even offer the full satisfaction of a thoroughly gripping yarn. But The Black Album, Hanif Kureishi’s new dramatisation of his 1995 novel, has one ace up its sleeve: it’s about a subject that matters - the rise of radical Islam in the UK.
Kureishi identified, before many other writers, the toxic fundamentalism bubbling away in Britain’s multicultural melting-pot. In revisiting his follow-up to The Buddha of Suburbia, which placed that debut novel’s coming-of-age trajectory within the perturbing context of growing extremism, he might be accused of reheating old arguments. Yet if we’re to understand where we are today, we need to rewind to the crucible year of 1989, Kureishi suggests, and Jatinder Verma’s lively production - saturated with period sounds - underlines this by concluding with a foretaste of the home-grown jihadist attacks of 2005.
To its credit, the show isn’t overburdened by the wisdom of hindsight. It stays true to what was known then. The title derives from the cult Prince album that was withdrawn by the artist himself for being too malignant. And hovering over the action is the Iranian fatwa against Salman Rushdie; in the most disturbing scene we see a copy of The Satanic Verses being set alight - a perfect instance of Islamo-fascism. Yet for the most part, Kureishi - whose instincts are affectionately satirical - explores with comic relish a disparate bunch of mindsets united by a mixture of innocence and incoherence.
Wide-eyed and fresh-faced, Jonathan Bonnici plays Shahid, the impressionable Asian youngster who has escaped the suffocating comforts of suburban Kent for the gritty allure of life as a student in north London. A battle commences for his rootless allegiance. In one camp, there’s the independent-minded hedonism embodied by his lecturer Deedee (a foxy Tayna Franks). Set against that, there’s the seductive austerity of Shahid’s newfound religious buddies, led by the guru-figure of Riaz (a coolly assured Alexander Andreou)...
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
Kureishi identified, before many other writers, the toxic fundamentalism bubbling away in Britain’s multicultural melting-pot. In revisiting his follow-up to The Buddha of Suburbia, which placed that debut novel’s coming-of-age trajectory within the perturbing context of growing extremism, he might be accused of reheating old arguments. Yet if we’re to understand where we are today, we need to rewind to the crucible year of 1989, Kureishi suggests, and Jatinder Verma’s lively production - saturated with period sounds - underlines this by concluding with a foretaste of the home-grown jihadist attacks of 2005.
To its credit, the show isn’t overburdened by the wisdom of hindsight. It stays true to what was known then. The title derives from the cult Prince album that was withdrawn by the artist himself for being too malignant. And hovering over the action is the Iranian fatwa against Salman Rushdie; in the most disturbing scene we see a copy of The Satanic Verses being set alight - a perfect instance of Islamo-fascism. Yet for the most part, Kureishi - whose instincts are affectionately satirical - explores with comic relish a disparate bunch of mindsets united by a mixture of innocence and incoherence.
Wide-eyed and fresh-faced, Jonathan Bonnici plays Shahid, the impressionable Asian youngster who has escaped the suffocating comforts of suburban Kent for the gritty allure of life as a student in north London. A battle commences for his rootless allegiance. In one camp, there’s the independent-minded hedonism embodied by his lecturer Deedee (a foxy Tayna Franks). Set against that, there’s the seductive austerity of Shahid’s newfound religious buddies, led by the guru-figure of Riaz (a coolly assured Alexander Andreou)...