Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 14
CAST & CREDITS
Writer and performer: Khalid Abdalla
Director: Omar Elerian; Set & Costume Designer: Ti Green; Choreographer: Omar Rajeh
Lighting Designer: Jackie Shemesh; Sound Designer: Panos Chountoulidis
Video Designer: Sarah Readman; Dramaturg: Ruth Little; Writing Mentor: Chris Thorpe
Associate Director: Riwa Saab; Set & Costume Associate: Jida Akil
Associate Lighting Designer: Rajiv Pattani; Associate Video Designer: Virginie Taylor
Lighting Associate: BROCKMAN; Press Representative: Bread & Butter PR
Poster Photography: Helen Murray; Trailer: Jamie Isbell / Jam + Post
Production Manager: Milorad Zakula;
Company Stage Manager: Hannah Clare; Technical Stage Manager: Rachel Bowen
To say Nowhere is an original piece of theatre production is not sufficient. It seems rather weird at first as you begin to wonder is this an actor playing himself? He plainly is performing a script as an actor playing a role; but the role is himself revealing in choreographed, often almost dance-like, movement in response to the story he tells – via a variety of multimedia formats, visual and audio – of his life, born in Egypt and brought when very young by his parents as refugees to London, where Wikipedia records him as
an Egyptian-British actor and activist. He became known after starring in the 2006 film United 93.
Abdalla starred as Amir in The Kite Runner (2007) and acted with Matt Damon in Green Zone (2010), his second film with director Paul Greengrass. Abdalla appears as himself in Jehane Noujaim's documentary on the 2011 Egyptian revolution, The Square, which won the Audience Award at Sundance Festival in 2013. In 2022 and 2023, he starred as Dodi Fayed in seasons 5 and 6 of the historical drama series The Crown, for which he received a Critics' Choice Television Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.
He often appeared to be addressing us directly – even engaging us in an audience participation segment – and yet, it seemed on one occasion, he forgot his lines and had to ask for help from Prompt, who supplied the line he then repeated and continued on.
Philosophically, at some point, he – in character – queried our perception of ourself compared with the self we would like to be, as if this is a real concern for Khalid. Yet it’s obvious to me that his success on stage shows that he understands himself very well, in order to be able to act this ‘play’ called Nowhere.
In the end the essence of the play is represented by the white dove of peace trying time after time to find somewhere to land – but finding nowhere in modern times through the days of his great-grandfather, grandfather and father being jailed for their opposition to the British colonial government of Egypt, and the following governments, to the point where if he were to go back to Egypt now, his activism in the 2011 revolution could see him jailed.
And now The Guardian writes ‘An Arab in a post-9/11 world’: Khalid Abdalla’s one-man play about belonging comes to Australia
In Nowhere, The Crown actor interweaves personal experience and family history with commentary on western colonialism and the Israel-Gaza war. In what is an example of good theatre taking risks, the script includes referring to the recent Bondi shooting in raising the question of the need to recognise the horror of the treatment of Jews in the Holocaust, while maintaining the need to support all people, and peoples, with equal respect – including the Palestinians at the time of the establishment of modern Israel and in Gaza today.
His audience participation game is gently and thoughtfully managed to reveal how multicultural the audience is in today’s Sydney, leaving us to consider the future of the white dove of peace for all. The stage where he performs, he explains, is a safe place – but he calls it Nowhere, because nowhere else can the dove safely land.
In the light of what has just happened at the Adelaide Writers Festival, Kahlid Abdalla has taken a risk in presenting his life story in such a way, but this is what theatre is for – to reveal what we may not easily accept about human society. Nowhere is highly recommended in my view.
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| Khalid Abdalla performing in his play Nowhere, Sydney Festival 2026 |
©Frank McKone, Canberra
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