Skip to main content
#AIWW: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei, Hampstead Theatre at Home
Timely revival of play on Chinese dissident

HOWARD BRENTON’S 2013 dramatic treatment of Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei’s arrest and 81-day interrogation has acquired fresh relevance today, as part of Hampstead Theatre's “at home” online season.

With Trump rekindling cold-war embers, this well-tested dramatic formula of mental torture techniques, with the victim subjected to disorientation pressures designed to extort confessions, fits well into the media’s current anti-Chinese narrative.

The central interrogation, first by a fairly amateurish police unit who appear to be bewildered by their unusual prisoner, and then by the political department under military auspices, has a compelling authenticity owing to Benedict Wong’s convincing performance as the victim.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You can read five articles for free every month,
but please consider supporting us by becoming a subscriber.
More from this author
nazi nightmares
Books / 2 May 2025
2 May 2025

GORDON PARSONS is fascinated by a unique dream journal collected by a Jewish journalist in Nazi Berlin

titus
Theatre review / 2 May 2025
2 May 2025

GORDON PARSONS meditates on the appetite of contemporary audiences for the obscene cruelty of Shakespeare’s Roman nightmare

Pier Paolo Pasolini as Chaucer in his film of The Canterbury
Books / 16 October 2024
16 October 2024
GORDON PARSONS recommends an ideal introduction to the writer who was first to give the English a literary language
Books / 6 August 2024
6 August 2024
GORDON PARSONS welcomes a graphic biography of George Sand, the most popular French novelist in 19th-century Britain
Similar stories
Ai Wei Wei, Wheatfield With Crows, 2024
Exhibition Review / 28 February 2025
28 February 2025
SIMON DUFF explores the latest offering of the Chinese artist in exile AI WEI WEI    
NO THRILLS: East is South at Hampstead Theatre
Theatre review / 19 February 2025
19 February 2025
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a play about AI that results in a deadening disconnect for its audience
THE UNACCEPTABLE FACE OF TECHNO-CAPITALISM: Entrepreneur Mar
Books / 22 November 2024
22 November 2024
JON BALDWIN recommends a well-informed survey of the ills promoted by AI tech corporations, and the measures needed to stop them exploiting us
TRULY MAGNIFICENT: Danny Sapani and Ayesha Antoine in Betwee
Theatre Review / 15 May 2024
15 May 2024
MARY CONWAY relishes a magnificent performance and the rich street language in a flawed depiction of racist police violence in downtown New York