A beautifully devised piece of theatre from award-winning playwright Azan Ahmed (Deen & Dunya, The Father and the Assassin), Statues is a whipsmart production that uses hiphop as the dynamic vehicle to reflect on loss, self-expression and the marginalisation of British Muslim voices.
A short, sweet and timely production, balancing joyful entertainment with political commentary
Held in the Bush Theatre's intimate Studio, Statues feels both fresh and established, benefiting from Ahmed’s urgent voice and the Bush’s talented production team.
Firmly grounded in South Kilburn (or SK), Ahmed stars as Yusuf who is grieving the loss of his father while navigating his first week as head English teacher at a new school.
While touching on displacement and inequality, Statues focuses on the issue of supposed radicalisation within his community, through the generations.
While steering an unruly new student away from ‘radical’ thoughts, Yusuf finds his father’s old mix tapes for the first time. In this, he learns that the man he knew only as a statue was once an aspiring rapper standing up against oppression and racist skinheads on the block.
An internalised fear of expressing Islamic thought and political identity has shaped Yusuf’s life, so that when the new student seeks to call Hamlet a radical, Yusuf rushes to silence him. When the opinionated student gets referred to Prevent – the government’s heavyhanded attempt to rehabilitate people susceptible to radicalisation – Yusuf knows he messed up.
A short, sweet and timely production, Statues successfully balances joyful entertainment with political commentary in a way that is never forced.
Add to this the playful lyricism of his father’s old mix tapes and you have a near perfect play, with laugh out loud moments courtesy of Yusuf’s father’s best friend, Oman, played by the talented and likable Jonny Khan.
For fans of both NWA and Asian culture, it’s a must-see.
