This highly topical play, if anything had too much in it and to it; so it's key messages got slightly lost amongst the action.
The key plot is that the Tories are having a conference in Bradford. The local councillor Kash lives with Natalie, a convert to Islam and daughter of a Tory stalwart, Lyn. Also in the household is Khadira his teenage daughter.
The City is the site for an anti-war peace camp, somewhat to the horror of the visiting party high-ups.
Khadira becomes radicalised and carries out a failed protest at the conference, suffering bad burns for her trouble.
There are many good lines but I'm not sure that I fully understand why Khadira took the path she did; and yet this is a fundamental topical question with the actual departure of the three schoolgirls and the story of Mohammed Emwazi. The person who radicalised Khadira has virtually no lines and yet her role in it all is critical. All we are left with is to wonder why all muslims are not radical in the face of the mother's deep-seated lack of acceptance of diversity. The end of the first act is particularly telling when her veneer of tolerance breaks down and she comes out with the old 'why don't you go home' cliches.
So overall, a good evening and excellent acting if a little too much shouting. The play itself, for me, needed simplifying so that the 'take home' was more obvious and worked through.
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