Simon Ward reviews Cutting The Tightrope: The Divorce of Politics From Art at the Arcola Theatre

The staging of this collection of short works is an explicitly political act, which aims to galvanise audiences into further political action. Under those circumstances, therefore, it seems crass and irrelevant to assess how well it works as a piece of theatre. And yet, the messages the pieces wish to convey will land most effectively if they are theatrically engaging. And the best pieces here manage the difficult balancing act of combining political commitment with lightness of touch, humour and irony.

One of the driving forces behind this production is the culture of censorship, including self-censorship, which seems to be increasingly prevalent within the world of theatre in the UK. This has long been an issue – in the 1980s, for example, campaigner Mary Whitehouse took director Michael Bogdanov to court over the alleged obscenity in his production of Howard Brenton’s Romans in Britain – but its salience has increased now as political discourse has become more polarised. In September this year Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre cancelled its production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream amid concerns about the expression of pro-Palestine and pro-trans rights opinions. And in October, the play What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank was forced to move venue because of fears of protest. Even the Arts Council has made ominous remarks discouraging ‘political statements’.

With all that as background, a creative ensemble has got together to produce a response – a collection of short plays, sketches and vignettes which share a passionate commitment to telling their truth in the face of any opposition, and without censorship. The ensemble is large, consisting of actors and co-writers Waleed Elgadi and Joel Samuel, actors Salman Akhtar, Issam Al Ghussain, Ruth Lass, Sara Masry, Jess Murrain and Mark Oosterveen – with co-directors Cressida Brown and Kirsty Housley alongside writers Dawn King, Sonali Bhattacharyya, Roxy Cook, Sami Abu Wardeh, Hassan Abdulrazzak, Mojisola Adebayo, Phil Arditti, Nina Bowers, Ed Edwards, Ahmed Masoud and Zia Ahmed. All the more impressive then that the pieces hang together so well. And the actors respond to the demands of multi-roling with deftness and skill throughout. Kudos, also, for the gracious and humorous handling of a technical hitch on the brink of the interval.

Targets are wide-ranging, from a satirical take on the desire to ignore everything unpleasant in the world by simply avoiding all news, to the sheer horror of the many wars, proxy wars and massacres in the world and their effects, including on people thousands of miles away, to the difficulties of making a human connection in a broken society. There is a particularly moving account of the extraordinary exclusion of Diane Abbott from the parliamentary debate about racist remarks directed at her. Palestine necessarily and rightly looms large, but a mention, too, for the often overlooked conflict in Sudan, which has also left many millions of people displaced as well as many tens of thousands dead. At times grim, at times almost unbearable, but essential, unflinching and powerful – this is an urgent and energising evening.

Cutting The Tightrope:The Divorce of Politics From Art is running at the Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, London E8 3DL until Saturday 7th December