Ibrahim is not just the writer. She is a trained and accomplished actor, and she takes on the main part of Um Kamal herself. The play’s effectiveness relies on her performance, and she is on stage all the time. She is doing chores in her kitchen while the audience comes in at the start, and she returns there before it returns from the interval.  She makes the play work.

That kitchen is a kind of apron, occupying only a small part of the stage.  The play premiered at the much smaller Hen and Chickens pub theatre, and director Stephen Freeman has made intelligent use of the generous extra performance space at Upstairs at the Gatehouse. The kitchen is raised sand cluttered, leaving bare space all round to serve for all the other locations, including the prison.

Apart from Ibrahim, the greatest acting burden falls on  Manav Chaudhuri, who plays no fewer than eight parts. These include a wonderfully bureaucratic letter writer who will, for a fee, write a letter in the correct form pleading for the release of a family member.  It’s much to Chaudhuri’s credit that I was never confused about whom he was playing.

This is an exciting and informative evening in the theatre. It isn’t perfect. Motivations sometimes seemed obscure, for example when the brothers started fighting each other at the end.  Tension slackened after the second brother was released from prison.  I was not sure that the occasional stylised movements added anything much.

But the show grips and instructs at the same time, and that’s a rare and precious thing in the theatre these days. It’s a well crafted, well acted, thoughtful and serious play.