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If Shamima Begum had a sister
SIMON PARSONS applauds a tense and thoughtful production that regularly challenges our political engagement and prejudices

Antigone (On Strike)
Park Theatre

THIS modern, imaginative reworking of the Greek tragedy involves a British-born, Isis child bride and her sister’s desperate campaign to stop her being stripped of her citizenship and denied her time in court. The parallels to Shamima Begum’s desperate plight, still detained in a Syrian camp along with 18 other British women, are obvious.

The production centres on the political machinations of the British Conservative government in promoting this policy, while remaining true to the nature of classical Greek theatre by making the audience active participants in the process.

Set within an interactive media studio, we are asked to vote electronically on various questions relating to the issue. Our responses, in between being bombarded with reportage interwoven with political sound bites and the manoeuvrings of an ambitious home secretary, are set against the embattled reflections of the sister at the heart of the campaign.

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