Duncan Harley

One can almost imagine the frantic conversation as the Foreign Secretary advised his minions that he was not after all planning to put his head on the chopping block in a last-ditch effort to stop the Heathrow third runway extension: “Don’t be silly. Is my middle name Goering? Or Meyer? I mean come on, it’s not as though a single bulldozer has actually been dropped on the bloody place.” “But sir, you made a pledge to the electorate” “Well perhaps, but that was yesterday; or at the very least a long long time ago. And I can do whatever I want and you can’t stop me.” “Well, erm, what would you like us to do? You obviously can’t attend the Common’s vote on the matter. You would have to resign in protest after all.” “Just get me out of here for a bit for god’s sake. What about India, or maybe somewhere important like Borneo or Greenland. I’ve got it! Send me to Kabul, that should bloody well do it.” “But there’s nothing much happening in Kabul at the moment sir. Perhaps you...

The brutal rape of young Hassan by sociopath Assef and his cohorts sets the tone of this touring stage adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling novel. And the child-rape is not the only gut-wrenching scene from the book to be splashed all over the stage in front of the theatre audience. An execution by the Taliban, a bone-crunching beating or two and tales of death by landmine are intermingled with implicit references to paedophile driven child abduction and the stoning of adulterers. Not that the above events appeared gratuitous. Indeed, they are central to the telling of the tale. It’s just that they are shocking. The rape may well bear allegorical  significance in relation to the 1979 Soviet invasion and death by landmine is described as a good way for an Afghan to die. As for the stoning of adulterers and the abductions, well, these simply add to the overwhelming uneasiness which this production induces. Indeed, at the end one audience member was heard to comment th...