“A story of blockbuster proportions! The Big Lie is an urgent and captivating story, told by a voice the world needs to hear.”  ★★★★ –  EDINBURGH49

“Shaniaz’s storytelling capabilities are intelligent, apt and truly cutting; a welcome break from the more trivial pieces of this year’s Fringe.” ★★★★ – THE LIST

“Shaniaz Hama Ali’s semi-autobiographical play contains all the elements needed for a great story…and like the rest of the fascinating hour that we spend in her company, we applaud her for it.” ★★★★ – BROADWAY BABY

Front Line Club are proud to present The Big Lie, a Edinburgh Fringe success production that is going off Broadway in New York later this year – via a pit stop at Frontline.

In this semi-autobiographical play, Shaniaz is an ambitious associate at Sweden’s leading corporate law firm and is assigned to work with their top client – a global arms manufacturer – to sell arms to Syria. The protagonist, an Iraqi-Kurd and a survivor of Saddam Hussein’s genocide of the Kurdish people, has to consider whether or not to take on the case. Her conscience tussles with her ambition to become one of the firm’s partners, enabling her to join the ruling class.

The Big Lie makes us question our own morality. In her shoes, would we take on this case?

This humorous, gripping play is written by Hama Ali and directed by Oscar Toeman. Shaniaz worked as an associate at a global corporate law firm in Sweden, where she gained first-hand insight into a world that is normally hidden. Shaniaz fictionalised her experiences at the firm in a film screenplay that caught the interest of a Swedish production company. When Shaniaz moved to London, she made it into a one-woman show to bring to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2018.

The show won critical praise in Edinburgh with 4 stars reviews from Broadway Baby, the List and Edinburgh49. It was featured in the Scotsman, listed as one of four must-sees by the Daily Record and was nominated for Amnesty Freedom of Speech Award. 

Shaniaz says of The Big Lie, “As a Muslim refugee I wanted to make a play about the racism I experienced growing up in an all-white, working-class neighbourhood in Sweden and why people vote for the far right, for Brexit and Trump. But mostly, I want to tell the truth about the clients of the corporate law firm that I worked in – the wealthy 1% and their role in all of this.”

During the Q&A we’ll be asking tough questions about the meeting points of politics and theatre in our society – and the relationship between art and activism.

Shaniaz Hama Ali is a Kurdish-Iraqi actress who came as a refugee to Sweden at a very young age. She joined the Swedish Labour Party and became the fiscal spokesperson for the Labour youth. But Shaniaz had a passion for acting that never subsided, she resigned from her job as a legal consultant and moved to London to focus on her acting career. She has since then starred in the short film PRACTICE; performed in the critically acclaimed French TV-series The Bureau (Canal+); and most recently in Red Snake, directed by Caroline Fourest, award winning French journalist, in her feature debut.

Oscar Toeman read English at St, Catharine’s College, Cambridge University, and trained as assistant to Roger Michell, Polly Findlay, Blanche McIntyre, Tim Carroll and Lucy Bailey at institutions including Shakespeare’s Globe, the RSC and the National Theatre. He was Resident Assistant Director at the Finborough Theatre in 2011, long listed for the JMK Award in 2014 and 2015, a National Theatre Staff Director in 2015, Interim Resident Director at the National Theatre Studio in 2016.

Siana Bangura is a writer, producer and community organiser originally from South East London, now working between London and the West Midlands. Her work primarily focuses on the intersection between race, class and gender, exploring issues such as deaths in custody in the UK, police brutality, and gentrification. Siana is the founder and former editor of Black British Feminist platform, No Fly on the WALL and most recently she was Campaigns & Communications Officer for an environmental charity in Birmingham, focusing on mobilising young people to take action in their local communities. Siana’s past contributions as a producer in theatre include ‘Fierce’ (Camden People’s Theatre), ‘Othello’ (English Touring Theatre), and she is currently an artist in residence at The Birmingham Rep. Siana is an alumnus of China Plate Theatre’s The Optimists, Belgrade Theatre’s Critical Mass, and is currently commissioned to write three plays of her own.

“It took me years to make sense of my own history, and Russian society will take a similar time.”– Vladimir Ashurkov, Russian opposition politician

In collaboration with Theatre Royal Plymouth and the Sputnik Theatre, on Thursday 14 January the Frontline Club presented a staged reading of Grandchildren: The Second Act by Alexandra Polivanova and Mikhail Kaluzhsky as part of its Power, Politics & Performance in Russia series.

Told through a series of overlapping testimonies, Grandchildren explores how people construct and ultimately justify the actions of family members who – as members of Stalin’s inner circle or of the secret police – contributed to the atrocities and purges of the Soviet era.

Chairing the subsequent debate that covered the performance itself and the question of collective memory, BBC foreign correspondent Gabriel Gatehouse began by asking the panel what parallels they saw between the period depicted in the play and contemporary Russia.

John Freedman, theatre critic and former theatre critic for The Moscow Times, said that one of the strengths of the piece was that it “points no fingers, it has no answers, it does not say somebody is guilty or innocent.”

“What it messes with is life and the reality of a life that people live. Any one of us can look back into our own pasts and find difficult moments that we rationalise.”

And it was this, said Freedman, that causes him to despair, “because I see the same thing happening now. People around me are finding the exact same answers to similar questions.”

Writer and broadcaster Oliver Bullough stressed that each nation seeks to define itself by its past, but that in the case of Russia it is far harder to simplify into didactic terms and to challenge the narrative that has already been established. “People need stories to live their live by,” he said, “in order to make sense of it.”

Watching the Sputnik Theatre performance at #FrontlineClub with Cameren – Power, Politics & Performance in Russia pic.twitter.com/w0iNfLAhKv

— Catie Dear (@Catie_Dear) January 14, 2016

Touching on a recurring theme that a lack of lustration – a process of reckoning akin to the Nuremberg trials – was one of the primary causes of the current situation in Russia today, Vladimir Ashurkov, a prominent opposition politician and executive director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, said this is perhaps best illustrated by the resurgence in mass support for Stalin.

Russians have a long history of authoritarianism, said Ashurkov, but key is the role that government plays. “It can take steps to bring people closer, to make sense of their history and to be in touch with reality.”

He added that, over the past 15 years, the Russian government has sought to rehabilitate the cult of Stalin as a means of inspiring and imposing a new wave of xenophobia and nationalism.

Freedman touched on the building of this Stalin brand as an increasingly powerful tool: “What I see is people using the name of Stalin, using the picture of Stalin, as a sign to say ‘this is good, this is strong, this is part of the Russia I want’ – and running towards that.”

Alexandrina Markvo, a leading figure of the Moscow art scene currently living in exile, added that this use of the Stalin-myth as a tool for propaganda was resoundingly clear when you examined the teaching of history in schools across Russia, and specifically the way in which Stalin is presented.

On the subject of complicity, one audience member reiterated the panel’s earlier argument that the historical divide between victims and perpetrators had become far harder to define in Russia, and – over the course of 70 years of Soviet rule – had frequently become interchangeable. He argued that this had made it more difficult to point fingers of guilt, and suggested instead the existence of a complex of collective guilt versus collective innocence.

Ending with the question of whether Russia had entered a period akin to that under Soviet rule, speaking from the floor, artistic director of Teatr.doc Elena Gremina said: “Of course not, because the current government is much more dangerous and, in a sense, much more anti-people, and anti-state than even the Soviet government.”

The Frontline Club and Theatre Royal Plymouth in association with Sputnik Theatre present four nights of new Russian drama. Featuring exciting and topical plays by British theatre directors and cast – translated into English by Sputnik’s artistic director Noah Birksted-Breen. Each evening will touch upon various aspects of life in Russia covering an array of issues, from the clampdown on theatre and freedom of speech to growing social tensions and immigration.

Doctor by Elena Isaeva

Running time: 55 mins

A surprising, sometimes shocking, often funny and moving play about contemporary medicine in rural Russia. Based on a real-life testimony taken from a Russian doctor, it is also a touching personal portrait of an individual coping as best they can in difficult circumstances.

Doctor is one of the longest running productions of Teatr.doc, the renowned studio theatre in Moscow which was supported by Tom Stoppard amongst other prominent British voices when facing closure in 2014.

This reading will be followed by a post-show discussion with artistic director of Teatr.doc, Elena Gremina, in conversation with senior international correspondent for The Guardian, Luke Harding.

The talk will be interpreted for Elena Gremina (Russian<>English) by Alice Terekhova, an independent theatre practitioner and a professional interpreter working across a variety of arts: opera, theatre, new writing, performance art, independent film and education. Terekhova assisted some of the most inspirational directors including: Tom Stoppard, Mark Ravenhill, Natalya Vorozhbit, Dmitry Krymov and many others.

Zhanna by Yaroslava Pulinovich

Running time: 90 mins

Zhanna is a self-made business woman who has made it to the top for all the wrong reasons. She is living happily and in love until she is jilted, which sets her on the course for revenge. This play is not only about love but also the ruthless business practices borne of 1990s opportunistic Russia and its gangster capitalism.

The issues raised in the play will be discussed by a panel on Thursday evening. Following the reading, the members’ clubroom will open its doors to all attendees in celebration of theatre week.

Yarsolava Pulinovich was born in Omsk, Russia in 1987, into a family of journalists. In 2009 she graduated from the Yekaterinburg Theatre Institute, where she trained under Nikolai Koliada. Her plays have been performed in the UK, the USA, Poland, Estonia, Ukraine and in over forty theatres across Russia: in Moscow, St Petersburg, Omsk, Krasnoyarsk and many other cities. She has won awards including the Voice of a Generation Prize, the Debut Prize, the Eurasia Prize, the Best New Play award at the Golden Mask Festival, and the Harlequin Prize. Her play Untitled was previously presented at the Royal Court, London.

The Frontline Club and Theatre Royal Plymouth in association with Sputnik Theatre present four nights of new Russian drama. Featuring exciting and topical plays by British theatre directors and cast – translated into English by Sputnik’s artistic director Noah Birksted-Breen. Each evening will touch upon various aspects of life in Russia covering an array of issues, from the clampdown on theatre and freedom of speech to growing social tensions and immigration.

Grandchildren. The Second Act by Alexandra Polivanova and Mikhail Kaluzhsky

Running time: 55 mins

How do the grandchildren of prominent Stalinists feel when they find out who their beloved grandparents really were? Interviewed by the playwrights over the last couple of years, the protagonists’ grandparents were from Stalin’s inner circle – or members of the Soviet Communist Party or NKVD – and their testimonies bear witness to the very human desire to forgive those we love, even when we know their worst crimes.

Chaired by Gabriel Gatehouse, BBC foreign correspondent who has extensively covered the Ukrainian – Russian crisis. In June 2015, he conducted an exclusive interview with former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich in Moscow for Newsnight.

The panel:

Alexandrina Markvo is an art advisor and entrepreneur, and a leading figure in the arts sector in Moscow. She was forced to flee to the UK in April 2014 following persecution by the Russian government – her application for political asylum is currently under consideration by the UK authorities.

Vladimir Ashurkov is executive director at the Anti-Corruption Foundation, a non-profit established in 2011 by prominent Russian opposition politician, Alexey Navalny. On 1 December 2015, the Anti-Corruption Foundation released a film titled Seagull, accusing the general prosecutor Yuri Chaika’s sons of large-scale corruption and connections to organised crime. The film has made waves in both public and political circles and has garnered over 3.5 million views on YouTube to date.

Prior to pursuing civil and political activities, Ashurkov had a career in finance and served as a director at one of Russia’s largest investment groups, Alfa Group Consortium. He was granted political asylum in the UK in April 2015.

Oliver Bullough is a prize-winning writer, broadcaster and journalist, who has written in, around and about the former Soviet world for the last decade and a half. His book The Last Man in Russia: And the Struggle to Save a Dying Nation is about the effect of Stalinism on future generations. Bullough is currently investigating fraud, money-laundering and international corruption.

John Freedman is an American writer, translator, critic, and scholar of Russian drama and theatre. He has been a theatre critic for The Moscow Times since 1992.

The Frontline Club and Theatre Royal Plymouth in association with Sputnik Theatre present four nights of new Russian drama. Featuring exciting and topical plays by British theatre directors and cast – translated into English by Sputnik’s artistic director Noah Birksted-Breen. Each evening will touch upon various aspects of life in Russia covering an array of issues, from the clampdown on theatre and freedom of speech to growing social tensions and immigration.

The War Hasn’t Yet Started by Mikhail Durnenkov

This play was originally commissioned by A Play, A Pie and A Pint theatre company in Glasgow.

Running time: 55 mins

Does war amount to a father threatening to burn down a brand new house built for him by his son, simply to avoid the humiliation of being dependent? Is war what happens when a wife is obedient to her violent but devoted husband? Durnenkov depicts the dehumanising effects of living in a society on the brink of all-out war.

Stylistically reminiscent of the formal experimentation of Caryl Churchill or Martin Crimp, The War Hasn’t Yet Started is a dark but often hilarious play about where war really lurks – in our homes, on our streets, in our hearts.

This reading will be followed by a post-show discussion chaired by Lucy Ash, an award winning presenter of foreign affairs documentaries at the BBC. Ash spent four years in Moscow in the 90s, is a frequent visitor to Russia and is passionate about theatre’s ability to hold up a mirror to society.

The panel:

Bridget Kendall MBE is BBC’s award winning Diplomatic Correspondent, reporting and analysing major global news events, with a particular interest in Russia.

As Diplomatic Correspondent, Bridget Kendall has been covering major international events for the BBC since1998. Before that she was Washington Correspondent and Moscow Correspondent. She has a particular expertise in Russia and East/West relations and covered the collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as conflicts in Kosovo, Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine and now Syria.

She is also presenter of BBC radio’s flagship discussion programme on global ideas, The Forum.

Noah Birksted-Breen founded and runs Sputnik Theatre Company which is dedicated to bringing contemporary Russian plays to the UK. Sputnik has premiered eight new Russian plays in the UK in their first English language translations. Recently, Birksted-Breen co-authored with Christine Bacon, a play about independent journalism, On the Record, which was produced by Ice & Fire theatre company at the Arcola Theatre. Previously, Birksted-Breen won a Channel 4 Theatre Directors’ Award in 2006 and was attached as Resident Director to Hampstead Theatre.

Simon Stokes is the Artistic Director of Theatre Royal Plymouth. He trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and has directed abroad in Germany, Switzerland, Israel and The USA. Stokes’ most prominent work includes Kiss Of The Spiderwoman with Simon Callow and Mark Rylance, When I Was A Girl I Used To Scream And Shout with Julie Walters, Geraldine James and Dawn French; and Slip Of The Tongue with Ingeborge Dapkunaite and John Malkovich. Stokes is currently directing James Graham’s new play, Monster, Raving, Loony.

Theatre of War is an innovative project that presents readings of ancient Greek plays to members of the armed services, veterans, and their families to help them initiate conversations about the visible and invisible wounds of war. We are delighted to welcome the project to the Frontline Club for a special performance for journalists who cover conflict.

Opening with a dramatic reading of Sophocles’ Ajax, an ancient Greek tragedy about the suicide of a great respected warrior, by actors Jason Isaacs, Lesley Sharp and Aidan Kelly, the evening aims to generate dialogue about the unique challenges faced by those who risk their lives to bring the truth of war to light.

Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter, Blackhawk Down, The Green Zone)

Lesley Sharp (The Full Monty, Naked, Clocking Off, Scott & Bailey)

Aidan Kelly (Treasure Island – National Theatre, MacBeth – RSC, and Once – West End)

Following the reading a panel of journalists will give their reaction before opening up to a conversation with the audience.

The panel

Matthew Green has spent the past 14 years working as a correspondent for the Financial Times and Reuters and has reported from more than 30 countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the author of Aftershock: The Untold Story of Suriving Peace, which documents the post-conflict experience of British soldiers.

Emma Beals is a freelance journalist based in southern Turkey covering Syria and Iraq. She has also reported from DR Congo, Uganda, Rwanda and Pakistan. She is a member of the board of representatives for the Frontline Freelance Register (FFR).

Safa Al Ahmad is a Saudi freelance journalist working in print and television. Her focus in the past few years has been the Arabian peninsula, primarily Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Her essay Wishful Thinking was published in the anthology Writing Revolution. She is the recipient of ElMundo’s International Journalism award for 2015.

Theatre of War is founded by writer, director, and translator Bryan Doerries. He is also the co-founder of Outside the Wire, a social-impact company that uses theatre and a variety of other media to address pressing public health and social issues, such as combat-related psychological injury, end-of-life care, prison reform, domestic violence, political violence, recovery from natural and man-made disasters, substance abuse, and addiction. He is author of The Theater of War: What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today.

For this special event, Helen Chadwick Song Theatre will perform extracts from War Correspondents. The show was inspired by recent interviews with journalists who have worked on the front line, covering conflicts from Bosnia and Iraq to Chechnya and Liberia.

Amongst other interviews, the show also includes testimonies from the Frontline Club members including: Martin Bell, Vaughan Smith, Kate Holt and the late Tim Hetherington.

The performance will be followed by a discussion touching on the issues raised in the songs including impartiality, the guilt that builds up while reporting on people when they are at their most vulnerable, censorship, the increased dangers of working in the field since 9/11, the difficulties of safety for independent journalists in particular, and the personal cost to those reporting.

War Correspondents is created by the company with composer Helen Chadwick (Dalston Songs), choreographer Steven Hoggett (co-founder of Frantic Assembly and Oliver Award-winner for Black Watch) and creative associate Miriam Nabarro. It depicts the extraordinary stories and life changing experiences of journalists – men and women who risk their lives in extreme circumstances.

This will be followed by a discussion and Q&A with some of the creative team and the journalists whose testimonies helped create the show.

The panel:

Kate Holt, a photojournalist based in East Africa. She photographs for the international media, NGO’s and corporate clients.

Martin Bell OBE, a British UNICEF Ambassador, a veteran journalist and former independent politician.

Moderated by The Guardian correspondent, Christopher Stephen.

Creating provocative theatre carries great personal risks: emotional, financial and artistic. In Belarus, there are additional risks: censorship, imprisonment, and the fear of worse.

Belarus is governed by Europe’s last dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. In the run-up to the 2010 presidential election and for a year afterwards, filmmaker Madeleine Sackler followed the trials and tribulations of the Belarus Free Theatre, an underground theatre company based in Minsk and led by Natalia and Nikolai.

The elections were followed by demonstrations. Although the protests were violently crushed, it marked the start of a tumultuous year of unrest, fear, arrests and intimidation. The Belarus Free Theatre decided to move abroad and use theatre to draw attention to the situation in Belarus. Sackler followed their rehearsals, their emotional conversations with the home front, and their successful performances.

Some of the actors are still in exile, but others are continuing to make underground theatre in Belarus, in the hope that someday things will change.

Directed by Madeleine Sackler
Duration: 76′
Year: 2013

This screening is in partnership with Dogwoof

But while Mathilde lets off steam with a photographer and a spliff, Sadhbh has her own encounter: tea with a smart, brutal young warlord she’s investigating. Or is he investigating her?

A special preview reading of Bang Bang Bang, which is coming to the Royal Court Theatre in October.

Writer Stella Feehily:

“We interviewed aid workers, doctors, human rights defenders, government advisers, journalists and photographers.  In many organizations we found the majority of humanitarians to be female. The industry – and it is an industry – is buoyed by the benevolence of women.

Stella Feehily’s previous work includes Dreams of Violence (Soho), Catch (Royal Court), O Go My Man, Duck (both Out of Joint/Royal Court) and Game (Fishamble). She was a co-winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Award in 2006 for O Go My Man.