Actor-activist Khalid Abdalla decides the struggle must continue
Photo of Khalid Abdalla: Helen Murray
Daniel Nelson
It’s a bold man who takes on Israel-Palestine as a subject for a one-man show.
Bolder still for a Brit who has Egyptian heritage and an actor best known in this country for his role as the leader of the hijackers in United 93 and as Dodi Fayed in The Crown (which immediately tells you something about stereotyping).
Khalid Abdalla is also known, though less so here, for his activism: he founded Mosireen ("We Insist"), a Cairo collective dedicated to supporting citizen media across Egypt after the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak. It rapidly became the most watched non-profit YouTube channel in Egypt and subsequently worldwide.
It’s in the blood: both his father and grandfather were anti-regime activists in Egypt.
His performance is a sort of autobiography (“Welcome to Nowhere. I’m going to share with you how I got here…and what ‘here’ actually means to me”). But it’s also a reflection, in the wake of the blossoming and withering of the Arab Spring, on revolutionary violence in the region generally and in Palestine specifically. Peace without justice, he suggests, supports the status quo and all its concealed imbalances of power.
It’s just a man, a few props (photographs, videos, laptop, projector) and creative staging. To brilliant effect..
Abdalla doesn’t travel in a straight line, partly so he can change the pace and tone, switches the emphasis between personal and political, and occasionally involves the audience. Getting us to draw self-portraits without looking at the paper strays well off the narrative, but it provokes appreciative oohs and aahs as he displays the results: we feel we are indulging him because we like his persona.
He even manages to negotiate his way through a final summation of his attitude to activism, after so many disappointments. It’s a tricky highwire call, but, to our collective relief, the dove of peace still has wings.
Nowhere, actor/ activist Khalid Abdalla’s solo show, pay what you can but £14 recommended, is at the Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill, SW11 5TN until 19 October. Info: Battersea Arts Centre
+ Post-show talks curated by Khalid Abdalla and the Palestinian Festival of Literature: 10 Oct, Nowhere: Spaces of Confinement, Solidarity and Freedom; 11 Oct, The Space of Confinement; 17 Oct, The Space of Solidarity