Press & Archive
PAST ARTICLES/ INTERVIEWS:
(click to download a Word Document or PDF)
Richard III Arab Tragedy Reviews
Marina Warner writes on The Mirror For Princes in The New Statesman
"Hamlet Bin Hamlet. Sulayman al Bassam fuses Shakespeare with the Middle East."
Emerging Kuwait, 2006.
"Shaikh Al- Zubair, an alibi for dissent."
Guardian, 24/ 07/05
PRESS QUOTES:
The Mirror for Princes
“the resonances emerge powerfully…..its eloquence is visceral and visual“ - The Times
“the show finds its voice in swirling images, a brilliant mix of video and eerie soundscape, and a use of the space that makes it feel as if the whole production is bleeding at the edges“ - The Guardian
The Al Hamlet Summit
"I doubt whether this year’s Festival will produce another show so directly relevant to the nightmare that is brewing in the Middle East, or so vivid and eloquent in the theatrical means it uses to confront it." - Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman
"The Al-Hamlet Summit takes the characters in Shakespeare’s play to a Middle East peace conference. Complete with interpreters and live music, it’s a fascinating mix of subtlety and bombast." - David Stenhouse, The Times
"The Al-Hamlet Summit, set in a Middle Eastern country riven with war and corruption, deservedly won a Fringe First Award last week." - BBC Online
"Poetic, intensely physical, marvellously inventive." - The Scotsman, UK
"Highly unpredictable, brilliantly performed and full of surprises." - Liberation, France
"Sulayman Al-Bassam seems capable of taking on any theatrical convention, anytime, anywhere. Watch out for the name." - The Stage, UK
"The director's vision resembles nothing I have seen done with Hamlet before he has been able to dramatise our reality with a courageous directness." - Al-Quabas, Kuwait
Reviews of this work-in-progress described the work as:- 'an enormously important and timely re-invention of Arab history.' - Al-Qabas Daily, Kuwait