Review: There Shall Be Fireworks, Wardrobe

This excellent one-man show from Bristol’s Plasticine Men skilfully recounts the tragic story of one man emerging from his childhood in Afghanistan to become a high-flying Chicago trader – before returning to the land he loves and attempting to use his fortunes to bring peace to its war-scarred deserts and mountains.

Unlike his British and Soviet antecedents, his Afghan intervention is motivated by munificence: but, like so many men before him, his attempts to subdue the powerful forces stirred up by hundreds of years of conquest and conflict are doomed to failure.

His tale exposes the arrogance and ignorance of men who presume they can steer the course of history or impose their own philosophy on others and be embraced as civilising liberators. It also provides a chilling reminder of our constant failure to heed the lessons of our forebears.

Martin Bonger’s performance is powerful, and he remains engaging throughout his 80 minutes of continuous monologue. Part recent Paul Kaye, part I’m Still Here Phoenix, part Apocalypse Now Sheen, he dexterously switches from childhood reminiscences of bustling markets to throwing shapes on 1980s Chicago dancefloors and hunting on the plains of Central Asia.

Props are minimal but used efficiently and with artistry – the grey stones at his feet becoming ever messier, the rug beneath them becoming obscured more and more, symbolising the desperate and irreversible chaos imposed by perpetual foreign meddling on a uniquely beautiful land. The venue suits Bonger’s performance, too, and he develops an intense relationship with the audience that is both intimate and sometimes unnervingly imposing. Jennifer Bell’s music is an important part of the production, intensifying moments of drama and emotion.

The final section, delivered like a drunken celebrity who won’t give up the mic at an awards ceremony, becomes a direct appeal for the audience to recognise the absurdity of western policy in Afghanistan, and culminates in a startling contrast between a curious British diplomatic gesture and the rallying cry of the Afghan folk hero Malalai at the Battle of Maiwand in 1880: “Young love if you do not fall in the battle of Maiwind, by God someone is saving you as a token of shame.” If only the case against ill-conceived wars of intervention was always so intricately informed and convincing.

There were other moments too of great poetry in the script, not least some delectable lines describing the first bomb that landed in the 2001 war. And, despite its thoroughly compelling representation of untameable disorder, the play’s ending was wonderfully neat: an appeal from the protagonist’s mother not to supplant Afghanistan’s story with his own, and a deliberate recall of a character from the play’s opening scene: the grave keeper at the White Cemetery in Kabal where Westerners are buried, including the narrator’s father and, perhaps eventually, him too. Despite relishing his tale, the audience leaves hoping never to hear another story of another unwanted and abortive Western cameo in the unending Afghan tragedy.

There Shall Be Fireworks continues at the Wardrobe Theatre until Saturday, Sept 24. For more info and to book tickets, visit thewardrobetheatre.com/livetheatre/there-shall-be-fireworks