(seen at the performance on 11th June 2024)
In Iran, Marjan (Nadia Albina) is teaching English to four struggling students who have dreams of moving to another country.
Elham (Serena Manteghi) wants to become a doctor in Australia. Nerves cause her to keep failing the crucial ‘English as a Foreign Language’ test.
Roya (Lanna Joffrey) has a son and granddaughter in Canada. She wants to join them, but how much do they want her?
Goli (Sara Hazemi) is young, enthusiastic and simply curious about a new language.
Omid (Nojan Khazai) is the strongest student, and eventually we find out why.
Sanaz Toossi uses the ingenious device of allowing the students to speak rapid English when communicating in their own Farsi, hesitant English when speaking the language they struggle to learn.
Over six weeks we see struggles and triumphs, crushes crushed, confidence and spirits raised and sunk.
Marjan and Omid share movie time and she clearly hopes for more. Albina allows her character’s language skills, gained by living in Manchester for almost a decade, to slip ever further as her self-worth seems to diminish; something Khazai’s aloof Omid, increasingly aloof, does little to shore up.
Jealousy and desperation fester among the other class members. Manteghi’s medical dreams hinge on a pass mark above 94, and she resents the ease with which others seem to speak, particularly the freedom of Hazemi’s free and expressive Goli from need rather than want of a new language.
Older than the others, Joffrey’s Roya is crucial in defining the central idea of the piece. A son overseas who speaks only English and wishes to pass that to his daughter. Yet language is how we communicate who we are, and what we use as a primary way to bond with others. Joffrey, with understated yet bottomless sadness, expresses the effects of wantonly discarding identity - the isolation it brings to self and all whom we wish to be close to.
Toossi goes on to develop this idea, questioning for all characters how language, personal identity and interpersonal interaction are linked. Director Diyan Zora allows each student realistic classroom time, ensuring this is no lecture but an organic discovery of the power of language.
Anisha Fields deserves a mention for the depressing room, sad bird artwork on wall, too hot in summer. A hint of a garden outside is illuminated by Elliot Griggs, casting tree-green onto the opaque glass in a hint of Eden out of reach.
Often touching, sometimes uproariously amusing, and a final scene which says everything even if it is not in English.
This may not commercial enough to transfer to the West End, but is a powerful work about the importance of communication which should resonate in a feature film version.
A reminder of how language can unify when we are all able to share our thoughts and feelings clearly to the world.
4 stars.