The British Ambassador's Belly Dancer

The scandalous love affair between Craig Murray, the disgraced British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, and Nadira Alieva, an Uzbek belly dancer who returned with him to the UK, made the front covers of Britain's red tops back in 2004. But arrive at Alieva's one-woman autobiographical show expecting titillation and the value of this performance will pass you by.

Alieva’s narrative is unashamedly faithful. Exhibiting admirable honesty, the victim of sexual assault, physical abuse and destitution spares no details. At no point is the audience left in any doubt that this is her life laid bare, and the effect is humbling.

If the show underperforms, it is in areas other than scripting. The production ingeniously incorporates Murray's words into the script, offering a balanced depiction of the couple's relationship. Though opportunities abound for the performance to lapse into mawkish sentiment, the relationship's flaws and frailties are laid bare – it was, after all, her desperation and his depravity that brought them together.

 

With similar rigour, Nadira explores the downfall of her nation, which closely mirrors her own. The play is scathing in its condemnation of the Foreign Office for bowing to pressure to have Ambassador Murray removed, and ably explains the challenging notion that the despair of the Soviet Union's collapse was, and remains worse than, the regime it demolished.

Judging by the size of the audience, this show is being underappreciated by a western audience unable to separate its Eastern portrayal of grief and struggle from tabloid sensationalism. The loss is ours.