political

CRIMEA 5AM | London, Kiln Theatre

Recommended

This free-admission, one-night-only performance is part of the British Council and the Ukrainian Institute UK/Ukraine Season of Culture, is produced by Dash Arts and supported in kind by Kiln Theatre. A cast of actors, activists and journalists will stage a reading of Crimea 5am in the Kiln Cinema, followed by a post-show chat co-hosted by Index on Censorship.

Highlighting the stories of ten political prisoners and their families, Crimea 5am is an international project that brings together voices from an extraordinary community of women, bound together as a result of human rights violations against Crimean Tatars since 2014. Curated by Alim Aliev and Nadia Sokolenko, this moving verbatim play tells the story largely through a female perspective, and how the women have been empowered and changed through their experiences.

Since 2014, civil activists and in particular representatives of the indigenous people of the Crimean peninsula, Crimean Tatars, have been persecuted by Russian occupying forces. Obscured by a news blackout, we know little of these events, little of the prisoners themselves, their families and life in Crimea under occupation.

Crimea 5am celebrates the sheer determination and activism within this oppressed community, the bravery of the prisoners in documenting abuses, and its defiant women holding the ravaged community together.

Playing at the Kiln Theatre 7pm, Monday 16 January, 2023. Free admission.

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THE CONVERT | London, Above The Stag

Theatre - Recommended

Following a sell-out run as part of Above The Stag’s CONTACT Season in 2021, The Convert will return for a full production from June 2022. Chillingly informed by real techniques that are used against LGBTQ+ people, Ben Kavanagh’s imaginative and timely play pitches nightmarish forces against our unerasable, shining humanity.

Alix and Marcus have been brought to The Facility to be “corrected”. If their condition is cured they may leave and return to the society. But if they fail, they will be sent to the Other Place, away from their friends and family forever. Failure is not an option, but in this confounding institution, where they only have each other, the greatest threat to their success is their own love.

“The play got such a huge reaction last year, and I am absolutely delighted that it’s returning,” says Kavanagh, about the original run at the same theatre in 2021. “It’s exciting to be able to develop the play for a full production and to have it published alongside the run so that the powerful subject matter may reach a larger audience.”

Gene David Kirk returns to direct, and is excited about the new possibilities for the show. “We have the opportunity to deliver a highly entertaining and theatrical evening of great writing alongside the highest production values. I couldn’t be more excited.”

Audience members are invited to book tickets for the play’s gala night on Wednesday 15 June 2022: tickets are £20 and include a glass of bubbly, a signed copy of the newly published playscript, and a Q&A with the cast and creatives.

Playing 8 June – 3 July 2022 at Above The Stag, the UK’s LGBT+ theatre.

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