Silence (London) London Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (1)
See it if you want a play that explores the personal memories and reflections of those affected by partition.
Don't see it if you want an easy and unchallenging evening of theatre. I found this difficult and uncomfortable in places but I dare say that’s the point.
Critic Reviews (8)
" ‘Silence’ is only a fraction of the unheard stories of Partition. Three-quarters of a century later, let’s hope the rest will have their chance to make a noise."
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" 'Silence' speaks directly to me in its trauma and discussions of colonial history. But it does the latter in tones that are too blunt and broad-brush."
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"In the end, we are left to sift through raw material that has the makings of an epic. Another draft waits to be written by someone, somewhere."
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" 'Silence' is essential viewing – an act of collective remembering that propels a key moment in history back into the spotlight, where it belongs."
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" 'Silence', refers to a decades-long reluctance to revisit unspeakable suffering and Britain’s slowness to confront its role in it. There are moments of eloquent stillness and muted agony, but the piece is structurally fragmented – its characters scantly sketched."
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"Although this play is credited to a supergroup of four award-winning playwrights - there’s a surprising lack of dramatic imagination in what follows."
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"The material, which has already had quite an airing in other media, carries the 100-minute play forward and the acting roots it in our common humanity, without a trace of victimhood or sentimentality. A moving experience."
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" 'Silence' is crying out for a dramaturg to wrestle its promising material into shape. Instead, Abdul Shayek’s production is gruelling often for the wrong reasons. It ends, poignantly, with projected photographs of some of those who gave up their stories."
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