The Beekeeper of Aleppo

Christi Lefteri's 'The Beekeeper of Aleppo' might have been written as a novel, but its storyline that follows the plight of two refugees attempting to escape war-torn Syria came very much from her own experiences working at a refugee centre in Athens. Published in 2019, her story now makes the leap from paper page to theatre play after an impressively brief passage of time, meaning that we are watching this Nottingham Playhouse production of Nesrin Alrefaai and Matthew Spangler's stage adaptation just four years after the book was first published.
 
Arriving at Norwich Theatre Royal just one week after 'Titanic – The Musical', one cannot help but feel the synchronous link between the two shows – not just the tragedy of innocent lives lost at sea, but also the desperation and dreams of those seeking a better and safer life for their families. Norwich has a proud tradition of welcoming 'Strangers', a story which can be traced back as far as the 16th century, when Protestant refugees were welcomed here as they sought to escape persecution in their own Catholic Low Countries. To this day, Norwich proudly remains a 'City of Sanctuary'.
 
Central to this stage version of 'The Beekeeper of Aleppo' are husband and wife Nuri (played by Alfred Clay) and Afra (Roxy Faridany). Nuri and his cousin Mustafa (Joseph Long) are each beekeepers, and the bees become a symbol of vulnerability, life and hope. “They are like a society in complete harmony with itself”, Mustafa explains to his cousin, just before he, himself, seeks to escape to the UK, and where he is now tending the bees in Yorkshire.
 
Ruby Pugh's stage design may seem slightly confusing to start with – a sparsely furnished room that seems to be sinking slowly into the desert, particularly during the initial twin narrative, where the storyline alternates between an asylum seekers' B&B in the UK and the couple's home in Aleppo. However, it soon becomes aparent that the sinking sand is more of a mental representation, something that is happening inside Nuri's mind - a reaction to the magnitude of what is happening to him and his family. Afra has been blinded during an explosion, and their son Sami was killed in a bomb blast. As Nuri's own mental health deteriorates he imagines a young boy, Mohammed (Elham Mahyoub), who appears to be following the couple on their perilous journey across Turkey, into Greece and onward to London. The sandstone boulders in the room assume a spectacular extra dimension when video-clips of war-torn Aleppo, and of crashing ocean waves, are projected dramatically across the entire set.
 
Whilst the horrors of war and displacement are absolutely key to this story, Miranda Cromwell's astute direction allows the book's overarching themes of love, grief, mental trauma, and the importance of home and family, to bring all of the characters to life and deliver a truly moving and vivid production that will melt the heart of even the toughest cynic. This is a show that tugs at your emotions, stalwartly refusing to let go until you are assured that Nuri and Afra are safe, and able to rebuild their life and their love together in a safe and welcoming new home.