The Empire

Gary, a British soldier in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, comes from a military family. He's working in training and liaison with the Afghan National Army, he's learning to speak the local language, Dari, and doing his best to be even-handed. But with daily life back in the UK and in this blistering, bewildering foreign land riven by race, class and religion, he sums up Britain's history of foreign occupation in the baldest and bitterest of terms: 'Thick cunts, led by posh cunts, hitting brown cunts. Way it is. Even now.'

DC Moore's new play is a gripping examination of division that connects the imperial past with the present, and traces the parallels between British social atomisation and borders and battle lines overseas. When the Taliban prisoner whom Gary and dope-smoking, traumatised Afghan Hafizullah are guarding regains consciousness, he unexpectedly addresses them in London street slang. How did he get there, and who will determine what will become of him - Gary's upper-crust captain, or the Afghan soldiers who will exact bloody revenge without concern for protocol?

The dialogue glitters with savage wit and Mike Bradwell's production is acted with riveting detail and authenticity, in particular by Joe Armstrong as Gary. A brilliant depiction of twenty-first-century tribalism, at home and abroad.