Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Arifa Akbar

A Knock on the Roof review – slowly searing account of life lived in a state of constant terror

Khawla Ibraheem in A Knock on the Roof.
Precision and truth … Khawla Ibraheem as Mariam in A Knock on the Roof. Photograph: Alex Brenner

If you had five to 15 minutes to flee your home before a bomb flattened it, what would you take? How would you get your family out of a seventh-floor flat? How fast could you run? These hypothetical questions take on chilling reality for a Palestinian woman living under Israeli occupation in Gaza. Khawla Ibraheem’s unnervingly funny (at first) and slowly searing monologue could not be more relevant, although it was first conceived in 2014. That it feels so urgent more than a decade on is all the more tragic.

Developed and directed by Oliver Butler, who previously directed Heidi Schreck’s Pulitzer prize-nominated What the Constitution Means to Me, this too is delivered as a solo female testimony, whimsical at first, then throttling in its grip.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.