Review: THE BEEKEEPER OF ALEPPO, Nottingham Playhouse

It feels particularly poignant walking into a theatre to watch The Beekeeper of Aleppo on a weekend that has been blighted by violent protests outside a Merseyside hotel housing asylum seekers, and less than a week after the devastating earthquake in Syria and Turkey. Stories of displacement like Christy Lefteri's 2019 international bestselling novel are needed more than ever, so the world premiere of Nottingham Playhouse's production is essential viewing.

Directed by Miranda Cromwell and adapted by Nesrin Alrefaai and Matthew Spangler, The Beekeeper of Aleppo tells the story of Syrian refugees Nuri (Alfred Clay) and Afra (Roxy Faridany) as they flee their homeland. Lefteri based the original story on her experiences of meeting people in a refuge centre in Athens, and while Beekeeper is not a true tale, "all stories are true in their own way", as Nuri reminds us.

Starting as Nuri and Afra arrive at the UK border to a cold welcome, we travel back and forth between Syria, Greece and England, visiting the couple's once-idyllic home in Aleppo both before and after it's destroyed by war, then accompanying them on their journey across Europe in the hope of finding a safe place and reuniting with Nuri's cousin and fellow beekeeper Mustafa (Joseph Long). There's never any doubt about whether the couple make it to the UK, with the story focusing instead on how they deal with the traumas they've experienced.

Adapting the book for the stage was always going to be difficult, with the story skipping between different lands and times, and the lines between memory and imagination often blurring. Designer Ruby Pugh chooses to use an almost entirely static set made up of sand dunes dotted with furniture, creating a liminal space that can represent various temporary homes as well as Nuri's troubled mindscape. Sometimes it works brilliantly, such as when a sand dune becomes a metaphorical and literal mountain to climb as Nuri struggles to obtain a doctors appointment without the correct paperwork. Other times it's not so effective, like when a mattress doubles for a boat, and the lack of movement makes the ocean journey far less frightening than it should be.

Ben Ormerod's lighting helps us move between the warm sunsets of Aleppo and the cold grey skies of the UK, and Tingying Dong's impeccable sound design ensures that every word is heard, even when accompanied by the buzzing of bees or evocative Syrian music, both symbols of home and hope.

Clay holds our attention throughout as our unreliable narrator, drawing the audience into his pain, anger and confusion. Nuri's character is never idealised or patronised; his story is told with respect and honesty. Opposite Clay, Faridany's composed, understated performance works well for Afra, who is suffering from depression and psychosomatic blindness. The couple's fractured connection is always visible, as is Afra's desire to bring Nuri back from the places he goes in his mind.

There are bright spots of humour in the play, mostly from Elham Mahyoub, who is charming as the young boy that Nuri meets along his journey, and Long, who competently juggles the roles of Mustafa and a fellow inhabitant of the English refugee B&B, a man who is doing his best to adjust to UK culture by drinking his tea with milk and calling everyone "geezer".

The show isn't an easy watch, both for its painful subject matter and its slightly uneven pacing (a problem mostly affecting Act 1). It is absolutely worth it, though. This is a play which deals beautifully with issues of grief, mental health and maintaining relationships in the most difficult of circumstances. It also forces us to look at society's treatment of asylum seekers, both at a systemic and individual level.

Fortunately, there is hope and beauty to be found in The Beekeeper of Aleppo, and we can only hope that sharing stories like this brings us a little closer to the sort of society that Nuri and Mustafa's bees represent.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo at Nottingham Playhouse until 25 February, then touring

Photo Credit: Manuel Harlan

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