Review Roundup: EXPENDABLE at The Royal Court Theatre

Royal Court Theatre is presenting the world premiere of Emteaz Hussain’s Expendable directed by Esther Richardson. The cast includes Maya Bartley O’Dea as Jade Steel, Avita Jay as Zara, Lena Kaur as Yasmin, Gurjeet Singh as Raheel and Humera Syed as Sofia. Expendable will run at the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs to Saturday 21 December 2024.

Between the 1990s and 2010s hundreds of young girls were sexually exploited in northern towns by gangs of predatory men. Two sisters grapple with the impact on their community as the men around them are embroiled in a sexual abuse scandal.

Giving voice to the often-overlooked experiences of British Pakistani women, Expendabledelves into the shortcomings of our national institutions - law enforcement, politicians and the media.

Expendable is designed by Natasha Jenkins, with dramaturgy by Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh, lighting design by Azusa Ono, sound design by Arun Ghosh and the casting director is Nadine Rennie CDG. See what the critics are saying...

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Arifa Akbar, The Guardian: The setup itself is promising: the sisters often cook as they talk, and there is the drifting smell of their pizzas baking in the oven. Raheel, when he creeps in, is almost ghost-like in his state of shock and fear. The sisters weave Urdu into English as they speak and have the prickly, push-pull of intimacy and grudge-bearing of siblings while Zara’s daughter, Sofia (Humera Syed), is a fired-up online activist in the making. But a strangely confusing plot unfolds, with reports of various characters, some named and others simply called uncles or aunts, off-stage. There are phone calls and texts delivering information too, and carrying only one side of the dialogue.

Daz Gale, All That Dazzles: hough Expendable is well-written, brilliantly staged and fantastically acted, I felt like it could go much further than it does. Beginning to unravel subjects but never quite getting there or stopping when it should be continuing, the play gave me the taste for more. You could argue that is the sign of a good play, and Expendable is undoubtedly that, but I don’t think it is the best version it can be yet. A bit more depth in the writing and world-building could make this exciting play another must-see for Royal Court, though it’s still decent enough in its current form.

Kate Wyver, Time Out: Most of the action the family responds to is happening offstage; the protests, counter-protests and arrests that hold the men at the centre of attention. Instead, on Natasha Jenkins’ naturalistic set, we witness the women's furious, furrowed conversations around the kitchen table as they argue over how to respond and recapture the media’s narrative, which is painting all Muslim men as predators and ignoring the girls at the heart of the issue. At times the dialogue spells out the subtext more obviously than is necessary, but there is complex subtlety here too, particularly in Yasmin’s challenging of who their community rallies around, and who it kicks to the curb.

Clive Davis, The Times:  Hussain compresses an awful lot of debating points into a small space. It’s not at all easy to follow all the references to all the offstage players in the local controversy. And the moment Jade blithely announces that she has a book deal strikes a melodramatic note (as does the scene where Zara tries to hide from her when she pays another visit). Yet the performances are pitched at such an intense level that you’re willing to suspend disbelief. 

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