A History of Water in the Middle East
www.royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/ahistoryofwater

Successful theatre used to dream of transferring to a bigger venue, or another country. For the moment, though, artistic afterlife is most likely to be online, either, depending on lockdown logistics, a video recording (such as last week’s Uncle Vanya) or an audio piece: as has happened with the Royal Court’s 2019 production of Sabrina Mahfouz’s play, A History of Water in the Middle East.

Mahfouz – who also acts alongside Laura Hanna, David Mumeni and Kareem Samara – describes the hour-long piece as a “lecture with a bit of a gig”. That latter element is music (composed by Samara) that underscores most of the words, although those are unlike most academic addresses, in having poetic rhythms and frequent rhyme, as well as a spine of dramatic dialogue in which the Anglo-Egyptian Mahfouz is (autobiographically, she says) interviewed by British intelligence as a prospective spy.