Stop and Search
Arcola Theatre · 09 JAN - 09 FEB
Arcola Theatre in association with Maya Ellis present
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Overview
A driver picks up a young man crossing Europe. Two police officers work a surveillance case. A passenger directs her taxi to the edge of a bridge. Three conversations grow increasingly uneasy.
From award-winning writer Gabriel Gbadamosi comes a visceral and poetic new play, exploring a time of distrust where the lines blur between conversation and interrogation. Stop and Search explores our deep ambivalence about the ways we police each other.
Age Recommendation: 12+
Critic reviews
Intriguingly poetic, if muddled, play about living in a climate of distrust
The show's focus on multilayered black experiences is to be commended; however a more considered approach to both pacing and delivery would have made it easier for us as the audience to connect
The writing has an unnerving poetry but can seem overwrought as it switches between cryptic slipperiness and a rather portentous topicality
Begins promisingly, but then struggles to deliver the message it’s hoping to give
There's no empathy established for anyone - that's needed in a tight studio over an intense hour and a half
A murky view of modern-day Britain
The menacing note the play ends on isn’t what will stay with me – it’ll be the moments of compassion and trust between strangers which Ergen spins out from the actors
Intriguing but fatally convoluted drama about an obnoxious white Brit who picks up an African migrant
There is a strange wisdom about Chirisa’s quietly composed Akim. Here is a man who has seen more than we could ever imagine: here is the man we should be listening to
Unfortunately, what is proving to be a hard- hitting piece fails to deliver an ending with any lasting effect
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