Blue Mist
Birmingham Rep Studio
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆

OLIVIER Award-nominated Blue Mist, about the social lives and pressures of three young Muslim men, started its life at the Royal Court in 2023. With a report out that British mosques are being attacked on average every five days this is a timely and deserved return to the stage.

Mohamed-Zain Dada’s fast paced and witty script is set in Chunkyz Shisha lounge, a nightclub-type venue where communal hookahs with various exotic flavoured tobaccos are shared by a largely young clientele. It is the place where long-time friends Rashid, Asif and Jihad hang out, relax and generally feel at home. It is a safe space where their traditional Pakistani backgrounds and the pressures of being young “persons of colour” with work and relationship pressures can be openly discussed and joked about.

The play is a clever riff on the Faustus myth with unemployed yet aspiring journalist Jihad selling out his friends’ lives under the pressures of producing something sensationalist for a predatory news corporation.

Only Omar Bynon as Jihad remains from the original cast but Azan Ahmed and Kashif Ghole, as Rashid and Asif respectively, are excellently cast. Outstanding performances from all three create a real sense of intimacy and shared values that make Jihad’s betrayal even more devastating than just the physical ramifications of the notoriety gained from his article.

The original director Milli Bhatia returns to produce a fresh and vigorous production where stylised movement and music delineate scene changes and the lively, brotherly banter is given an edge through the physicality of all three performers.

Tomas Palmer’s stage design is a simple yet effective sunken seating area backed by neon lights where the smoke of the hookah fills the air. Its naturalistic, multi-level design offers space for movement and transforms brilliantly into a starkly lit, boxing-ring style location for the moving final confrontation.

Although Jihad’s award-winning broadcast is a telling insight in to how and why young Muslim men are so often portrayed negatively in the press, it also echoes the insatiable appetite of news media to sensationalise and feed on disharmony.

Plays at Curve Theatre, Leicester, July 28-30. Box office: 0116 242 3595, curveonline.co.uk