THINGS HIDDEN SINCE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD Makes Scottish Premiere

Things Hidden  Since the Foundation of the World  makes its Scotland premiere in August. By Javaad Alipoor with Chris Thorpe, directed by Javaad Alipoor, and presented by The Javaad Alipoor Company with HOME and The National Theatre of Parramatta, the production comes to  Traverse 1  Tue 15 – Sun 27 Aug.

Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World is a kaleidoscopic theatrical investigation into the unsolved murder of legendary Iranian singer, Tom Jones-esque showman and sex-symbol, Fereydoun Farrokhzad, by writer and director, Javaad Alipoor.  

Performed by Javaad Alipoor and Asha Reid with Raam Emami and Me-Lee Hay, the show will have its Scottish Premiere at the Traverse Theatre this August following successful runs in autumn 2022 at HOME and Battersea Arts Centre. 

Things Hidden… is the final part of a trilogy of plays – after Fringe First winning The Believers Are But Brothers and Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran – that interrogate how modern technology shapes our political ideas and identities.  

Written by Javaad Alipoor with Chris Thorpe and co-created by Natalie Diddams, Things Hidden… takes a thrilling ride through the rabbit hole of the internet via Wikipedia and murder mystery podcasts to examine a clutch of competing theories about the final days of a charismatic entertainer murdered in exile. 

In the mid 1970s Fereydoun Farrokhzad was at the height of his fame. The much-loved tuxedo-clad showman was a regular fixture on Iranian TV and radio attracting record-breaking audiences of all ages. Alongside his own successes as a singer Farrokhzad hosted the weekly TV variety show, Mikhak-e Noghrei (Silver Carnation), which helped propel countless performers to stardom. Forced to flee his homeland after the 1979 Revolution, Farrokhzad settled in Germany but continued to perform to his adoring fans from afar selling out vast venues like the Royal Albert Hall. Though he had frequently challenged taboos and conservatism within Iranian society during his broadcast career in Tehran, in exile Farrokhzad’s position hardened and he became a scathing critic of the regime. On 7 August 1992, he was found brutally murdered in his small flat in Bonn. The neighbours said his dogs had been barking for two nights; the German police never solved the case.   

Writer, director and performer, Javaad Alipoor said: “When I started researching the story of Fereydoun Farrokhzad, I came to realise that his murder is the beginning of a series of events that still haunt us today. Over the six months since we opened the show, we’ve seen more and more stories about dictatorships targeting dissidents here in the west, and learned more about how those same authoritarians launder their money under our noses. Put simply, you might leave the dictatorship, but the dictatorship won’t leave you. Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World is the final part of a trilogy of plays that I began writing in 2017. I knew I wanted this last part to stand alone whilst speaking to the relationship between politics and technology, history and the present that has been the thread connecting all three plays. Retelling and trying to understand how to retell this story has helped me find a way to do that and to really confront what it means to think of the world as something like the internet, research as a kind of deep dive and communication as a kind of network.” 

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