You can rely on Snapdragon Productions to present a play full of intrigue and dark humour. Written by Josh Azouz, Once Upon a Time Under Nazi Occupation in Tunisia receives its world premiere at the Almeida directed by Snapdragon’s Eleanor Rhode. 

Max John’s set is dominated by a sweltering hot sun with unvarnished, stepped wooden boxes representing the desertscape.  Here we first meet Victor (Pierro Niel-Mee) a newish Jewish resident of Tunis, imprisoned under Nazi occupation.  His jailer is Youssef (Ethan Kai) a Tunisian Arab. Some of the Jews in Tunisia have escaped to North Africa from the German invasion of Europe. 

We hear that one of Victor’s Jewish friends has gone to Cape Town and this is met with hollow laughter.  I remember a Jewish witness against the man accused of being Adolf Eichmann in Robert Shaw’s 1967 play The Man in the Glass Booth being asked where he lived now, and was he doing well?  Cape Town and Yes were his answers, cynically received.

Youssef and Victor knew each other before Victor was incarcerated and Youssef continues to try to help Victor although as an employee of the Nazis, he is a collaborator.  Youssef is under orders from a puny but vicious German called Little Fella (Daniel Rainford) and the commanding officer (Adrian Edmondson).

It appears that the German commanding officers in Tunisia were known only by nicknames, “Grandma”, “Memento” and “The Killer”.   Could it be that these officers “following orders” were aware as to the severity of the war crimes that would be levelled against them in the event of their losing the war, and, deliberately chose anonymity?

Adrian Edmondson’s chilling and slyly humorous, camp (no, not the concentration camp but a camp manner) commandant is called Grandma because he sits in a corner knitting in the evenings.  His real name is unknown.  Edmondson’s performance, full of easy patter, is sinister and makes you shudder as you laugh, a not entirely comfortable feeling.