Expendable

Written by Emteaz Hussain, directed by Esther Richardson

Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court, London: 21 November – 21 December 2024

Review by Amanda Vilanova 

After taking in the dreamy Christmas lights of Sloane Square, I go upstairs into the Royal Court’s Jerwood Theatre. When I cross the threshold, I walk into a fully-functional, open-plan kitchen, complete with vinyl flooring and a table for six. The audience sits on three sides of the house’s front room. Once I’ve taken my seat, I see through a small opening into a second-floor bedroom. The words ‘Autumn 2011’ are projected onto the wall. We are ready for the eighty-five-minute kitchen sink drama to come.

 In the first moments, we learn that we have entered a British Pakistani home in the North of England and that Zara, the house’s owner, doesn’t want to answer the front door. We then meet her younger sister Yasmin, who has come to visit after years of distance. Yasmin drank in her youth and had a child outside wedlock, for which she was ostracised by her community. She has made the trip because Zara’s son Raheel has been accused of grooming young girls and his picture has appeared in national newspapers along with a gang of other men. This sets off a series of encounters between family members that take place over a single evening. Each of their exchanges speak to us about how the accusation has impacted this Muslim family and its relationship with the outside world. They now feel unsafe in their hometown. The play showcases how society’s perception of our community has lasting effects on us, drawing us closer together or sending us further apart.

The play is engaging and its characters are likeable. Each of them is awarded a clear narrative role; there is an outsider, a mother, an advocate, a victim, and an accused and yet none seem to have enough time to complete their storytelling tasks. The play feels too brief for such a harrowing and public subject matter. The dialogue is clunky at times and the script’s attempts at lightness seem lost within the density of what the writer is tackling. As the play drew to a close and tied up loose ends, it left me needing more.

Esther Richardson’s direction is effective, and the company all deliver solid performances. Avita Jay and Lena Kaur are believable as sisters, one dealing with overwhelming anxiety and the other owning her past with strength. We watch Gurjeet Sing as Raheel wrestle with the weight of his accusation, and Humera Syed’s Sofia embodies the passion and naivety of early activism. Maya Bartley O’Dea plays Jade, curiously the only grooming victim to take the stage, and we see her energized performance far too briefly. Natasha Jenkins’ set design supports the storytelling by thrusting the audience into this home complete with food smells and sounds of running taps and boiling kettles.

 I admire Emteaz Hussain’s desire to transform such a public issue into an intimate story. However, we needed a longer and deeper dive into the world of these characters to thoroughly appreciate the repercussions these events had on the victims and the people around them.