A British Subject Review

In 1988, a young British man named Mirza Tahir Hussein was sentenced to death by the Pakistani courts. For 18 years, Tahir languished on death row for a crime he did not commit while the UK government was all too happy to let him rot.

A British Subject tells the story of Scottish journalist Don Mackay and his wife —actress in and author of this production—Nichola McAuliffe’s campaign to win Tahir’s freedom. But while this play is undoubtedly “worthy”, it is so heavy-handed that it really falls flat.

Beyond the odd dodgy line (“My father was a merchant engineer from the Highlands. I miss him. He was a better man than me.”), the characterisation is almost offensively poor: this despite being not only based on real people, but also written by one of the key protagonists. Each is a caricature, a walking talking cliché. Tahir in particular is essentially an archetypal damsel in distress. He’s little more than a fetishized template as to how a young Muslim man should be, a Guardian-reader’s wet dream: passive, perfectly patient and angelically innocent. He’s essentially inhuman.

There are interesting flashes, certainly, such as the glimpse into the morally bankrupt Daily Mirror newsroom, but so much of the play is just dull. In spite of some strong performances, long stretches of clumsy, mind-numbing dialogue seem to carry on for eternity; one imagines with the intention to tug at the heart strings but succeeding only in making the play seem grossly insincere. Which, for a production based on real life, is unpardonable.