Archduke at Royal Court: An amusing look at young male radicalisation

Archduke at Royal Court - (Helen Murray)

Hands up if you know who Gavrilo Princip is? The young Serb activist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo in 1914 at the age of 19, triggering the First World War.

Gavrilo and his equally child-like comrades Trifko and Nedeljko, all of them starving virgin consumptives, are the subjects of American writer Rajiv Joseph’s dream-like, absurdist comedy. This 2017 work from the Pulitzer-nominated creator of Bengal Tiger in the Baghdad Zoo casts an amused eye over the radicalisation of hopeless young men and ends with a whimsical “what if?”