Three years ago, a Kurdish refugee, Firsat Yildiz, was murdered on Glasgow's Easterhouse estate. And, although the action has been transposed to London, this event clearly lurks behind Rhiannon Tise's short, sharp play, which uses sawn-off, Edward Bond-style dialogue to convey the irrational hostility inspired by the very notion of asylum seekers.
Using just four characters, Tise keeps her canvas deliberately small. The focus is on Gina, who is mourning her refugee lover, and who daily tends the knot of flowers adorning his headstone on the fringe of a bleak estate. But Gina is in need of consolation, which is supplied, in different ways, by shy, sensitive fellow-student Jack and her assertive, ebullient old flame Seb.
What Gina doesn't understand (or maybe she does subconsciously) is their role in her lover's murder. What is clear, from her encounter with Jack's fearsome dad, is that her love for a refugee brands her as a troublemaker.
Tise writes well about the tensions between individuals: the tentative, nervous exchanges between Gina and Jack are particularly good. She also shows how Jack's dad and the black Seb are united in their bigoted hatred of outsiders: Seb, in fact, is a bullish little-Englander who testifies for Jack's college video-project that "We was big once . . . ruled the world . . . but now we're like Tottenham or something." It's a point I've not seen made on stage before - that paranoia about refugees crosses racial frontiers. But, just because Tise has such sharp social antennae, I wished she'd dug even deeper and explored the sources of our xenophobia, in particular, the way it is fomented by politicians and the right-wing press.
I also found Nigel Townsend's production, for Y Touring Company, a bit shouty. But Louisa Milwood-Haigh as the grieving Gina, Michael Obiora as Seb, Elyes Gabel as Jack and Mike Dowling as his bulldozing, refuse-collecting dad all contribute impressively to a play that pins down all too accurately the loathing for refugees that plagues modern Britain.
· Until February 21. Box office: 020-7503 1646.
