Skip to main content
Advertise Buy the paper Contact us Shop Subscribe Support us
It’s not what you say, it’s the way that you say it
GORDON PARSONS relishes a play that reveals how language carries much more than simple communication

English
The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon

 

WITH language at the centre of current battles, not only with gender identity issues but also within our phoney culture wars, Iranian-American dramatist Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play arrives in Britain spot on cue.  

Set in an Iranian TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) classroom, a mixed group of four adult students engage with their linguistic struggles under the demands of their enthusiastic anglophile teacher who insists they communicate only in English.  

Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
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
Theatre Review / 10 July 2024
10 July 2024
GORDON PARSONS relishes a fast moving production of Sheridan’s comic masterpiece
Books / 3 September 2023
3 September 2023
GORDON PARSONS appreciates a very necessary exploration of the benefit of knowing more than one language
Similar stories
Theatre Review / 13 June 2024
13 June 2024
GORDON PARSONS is glad to have his mind taken off the election by a perfectly pitched farce
Theatre review / 1 May 2024
1 May 2024
GORDON PARSONS highly recommends a delightful production of the classic novel that emanates a sense of warmth and love
Theatre review / 24 April 2024
24 April 2024
Transmorphed into a romp in the Caribbean, the play effortlessly wins over the audience, writes GORDON PARSONS
Theatre Review / 14 February 2024
14 February 2024
GORDON PARSONS relishes a production in which Shakespeare’s language gives way to frenetic action and impressively colourful visual effects