Classical Music

What has filmmaker Mike Figgis to do with new music-theatre at English National Opera? At first glance nothing. But look further back and he’s the unwitting shaper of the script. Writer and film-maker Shan Khan explains. ‘I was making a low-budget film in Battersea Park. In one scene two people are hanging out for Mike Figgis – they’ve read that he likes Battersea Park.’ Then, by a coincidence that suggests the hand of fate, ‘my agent called and said ENO wanted to see me. They added that Mike Figgis would be there. I didn’t know what the meeting was about but I wanted to ask him to be in my film… They said are you interested in writing “Gaddafi the Opera”? I said, “Can you say that again, please?” I thought: Fucking hell – I’ve never seen an opera.’ He warbles, mock operatically. ‘Jesus Christ!’

In the event Mike Figgis didn’t direct, but Shan Khan has written the words – even the word ‘libretto’ conjured up images of ice cream cornets to this opera novice. ‘Gaddafi: A Living Myth’ is the result.

It’s opera, Jim, but not as we know it. Some ENO musicians join Mercury-nominees Steve Chandra Savale, Asian Dub Foundation, and the Egyptian group Diaspora. Leading actor is Ramon Tikaram (TV’s ‘This Life’). Fat ladies don’t loom large. David Freeman, Opera Factory’s founder, directs the piece’s free-wheeling multimedia approach. ‘Gaddafi wouldn’t work as straight theatre,’ says Khan. ‘This is the guy who wore a Michael Jackson outfit to a meeting of the Arab League…’ Feature continues

Khan knows something about cultural cross-references. His Asian family moved from London to Scotland when he was five; and small-town Scotland could be unwelcoming to ‘a brown family – or aliens, or polka dot: they’ll get it. We were lucky to be there to oblige,’ he concludes sardonically. But acting training at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and Edinburgh premieres for his plays ‘The Office’ and ‘The Prayer Room’ suggest all is forgiven, as does the broad Scots accent. Currently the most virulence Khan inspires can be found on the net. ‘The Prayer Room’, set in a British university where a meditation space is shared by various faiths (Christian, Muslim, Jew) until they start getting territorial, has touched raw nerves. ‘I don’t try to be controversial,’ Khan claims. ‘I try to be even-handed. Everyone’s to blame – that’s no great revelation. I hate and despise people who won’t recognise where others stand.’

The shifting sands of north Africa hardly provide a firm base for Gaddafi’s image. ‘Most people think of the “mad dog” of the Middle East, a bit deranged. He manages a football team. He decided to kill the “stray dogs” who dissed him abroad. He designed his own modern Arab tent… He’s a chameleon: one minute godfather to terrorism, the next a modern Arab statesman, then the leader of black Africa…’ A visit to Libya proved frustrating. It was Ramadan. Every evening the western visitors were driven to a safe house in a military convoy. ‘There’d be a table groaning with food, and a 50-inch TV with football on. You’d sit and watch Arsenal and go on about Thierry Henry.’ They faxed the same CVs to Gaddafi every night but Khan met only his ‘number one son’. Unlike most dictator’s offspring he’s neither a thug nor a playboy. ‘He’s charming, well-mannered, very polite. He’s very honest and open. He went to LSE,’ adds Khan, presumably as a clincher.

How to portray the elusive Gaddafi? ‘We decided to focus on the 1986 bombing. It’s a political espionage thriller. Who’ll kill him first? Reagan’s bombs? An assassin?’ And, one might ask, who is he anyway? Khan uses ‘the concept of a man looking in a cracked mirror. Is it him looking back or someone else? Reagan? The west? We use Gaddafi as a filter to examine relations between east and west.’

Nobody even knows for sure when Gaddafi was born, though he claims to recall Mussolini’s tanks. ‘There’s a romantic notion about uniting the Arabs. Every generation someone tries to take that role.’ Does Libya’s leader see himself as the Arab messiah? ‘He loves the masses but he fears them,’ shrugs Khan. ‘He hates them because they still cry out for more. He likes saying “fuck you, I’ll do it myself” and use oil money to go his own way. The same with terrorists – he funded both the IRA and the UDA…’

It sounds as if it could turn into black comedy. Khan smiles enigmatically. ‘If you don’t like the music, you’ll like the story. Or the dancing. Or the sets. If you’re paying 49 quid, I promise you you’re going to get 49 quid’s worth.’