The Fuel production of Nowhere, a solo play by actor and activist Khalid Abdalla takes to the stage at the Oxford Playhouse for three nights from Thursday, January 22 to Saturday, January 24.
Star of The Crown and The Kite Runner, Khalid Abdalla, makes his writing debut with a one-man show which was inspired by his involvement in the Egyptian revolution of 2011, and his experiences of the counter-revolution that followed.
It is directed by Omar Elerian (Misty, NASSIM and ECHO: Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen) and performed by Khalid Abdalla, who will take audiences on a surprising journey into his own history, set against a cartography of seismic world events.
From the histories of colonialism and decolonisation; friendship and loss; protests and uprising against regimes across the world; to the violence in Gaza following the events of 7 October 2023, Khalid brings together the personal and the political in an act of anti-biography that asks how we got here and how we find agency amidst the mazes of history.
Khalid said: “When I had my first conversation about Nowhere, Egypt, where I was living, was in the heart of a counter-revolution, with a military dictatorship purging another future. Back in London I started writing weeks after George Floyd’s murder, while the world was in lockdown. And now, we live in a world in which for people in Gaza, nowhere is safe, and we live in the shadow of that everywhere.
“If you want to live another future now, where can you be? And how do you find it in yourself? Nowhere is my attempt to respond to our world of intersecting crises, tracking where they live inside me, while searching for a shared space in which to explore how we got here, and what we have to reckon with to reach beyond it.”
Director Omar Elerian, said: “I am really excited to be working with Khalid, Fuel and an extraordinary creative team on this timely, profound and deeply personal show, interrogating themes that are very close to my heart both as an artist and as an individual confronting the complex questions around identity and belonging in an increasingly polarized world.”
About Khalid
Khalid is an actor, producer, writer and filmmaker. Nowhere is his first play. He is known most notably for his performances in The Crown as Dodi Fayed, Marc Forster’s The Kite Runner, and in the Paul Greengrass features United 93 and Green Zone. He produced and starred in the Egyptian feature In the Last Days of the City, directed by Tamer El Said, and in Tala Hadid’s The Narrow Frame of Midnight, and appears in Jehane Noujaim’s Oscar nominated documentary about the 2011 Egyptian revolution The Square. Khalid is a founding member of three cultural initiatives in Cairo – Cimatheque, Zero Production and Mosireen. He is also an Honorary Fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge. Brought up in the UK to Egyptian parents, Cairo and London are his two cities.
Tickets for Nowhere at Oxford Playhouse start at £15. To book, contact the Box Office on 01865 305305 or visit www.oxfordplayhouse.com
