Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
4 stars
A woman kneels across a platform reading Destination Moon, one of Herge’s comic strip adventures of Tintin. In this late tale, our blonde, be-quiffed boy-hero and chums are decamped to the exotic land of Syldavia, where, a good ten years before the first Apollo mission, the space race is already taking flight. It’s Herge’s usual fare of swarthy foreign agents thwarted by the thoroughly European forces of good.
As the starting point for the Cambridge-based Anglo-Iranian 30 Bird company’s impressionistic history of Iran on the 2006 centenary of its constitutional autonomy, it’s playful statement of intent. It demonstrates too how, caught between Russian and British empires, a mix and match of eastern and western influence left a template based on the Belgian constitution. And with such a mine-field of material to work with, writer/director Mehrdad Seyf somehow navigates through this densely detailed labyrinth, sketching in the essence of conflict via deft imaginative leaps.
Played out by just five brilliantly blue-suited actors on Leslie Travers’ slick, uber-cool set, 30 Bird have turned out a gorgeous-looking piece of serious fun. As a pukka voice-over fills in the gaps, Shahs come and go, each incarnation adding their personal tics. The first is a Black Adderish gadabout, his successor a brutally driven ball-breaker.
Seyf makes clear too the contradictions of the power that comes with independence. As American evangelists on a mission to civilise and save vow to never interfere with another country’s politics, the constitution’s inherent misogyny is left to fester. Only when Tintin’s rocket goes into orbit, though, does the blast’s full impact become clear.
The Herald, November 26th 2007
ends
4 stars
A woman kneels across a platform reading Destination Moon, one of Herge’s comic strip adventures of Tintin. In this late tale, our blonde, be-quiffed boy-hero and chums are decamped to the exotic land of Syldavia, where, a good ten years before the first Apollo mission, the space race is already taking flight. It’s Herge’s usual fare of swarthy foreign agents thwarted by the thoroughly European forces of good.
As the starting point for the Cambridge-based Anglo-Iranian 30 Bird company’s impressionistic history of Iran on the 2006 centenary of its constitutional autonomy, it’s playful statement of intent. It demonstrates too how, caught between Russian and British empires, a mix and match of eastern and western influence left a template based on the Belgian constitution. And with such a mine-field of material to work with, writer/director Mehrdad Seyf somehow navigates through this densely detailed labyrinth, sketching in the essence of conflict via deft imaginative leaps.
Played out by just five brilliantly blue-suited actors on Leslie Travers’ slick, uber-cool set, 30 Bird have turned out a gorgeous-looking piece of serious fun. As a pukka voice-over fills in the gaps, Shahs come and go, each incarnation adding their personal tics. The first is a Black Adderish gadabout, his successor a brutally driven ball-breaker.
Seyf makes clear too the contradictions of the power that comes with independence. As American evangelists on a mission to civilise and save vow to never interfere with another country’s politics, the constitution’s inherent misogyny is left to fester. Only when Tintin’s rocket goes into orbit, though, does the blast’s full impact become clear.
The Herald, November 26th 2007
ends
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