{"id":300633,"date":"2025-12-05T15:24:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T15:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/300633\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T15:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T15:24:07","slug":"before-the-millennium-review-secrets-and-spies-as-woolworths-staff-party-like-its-1999-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/300633\/","title":{"rendered":"Before the Millennium review \u2013 secrets and spies as Woolworths staff party like it\u2019s 1999 | Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Karim Khan\u2019s absorbing Christmas<\/a> play offers warmth, doubt, uncanny strangers and a generous handful of sweets from the Pic \u2019n\u2019 Mix. It all makes for a smartly unexpected festive story. It\u2019s 1999, ticking down to the millennium. At the Woolworths staff party in Oxford (paper hats, sensible shop-floor shoes), Zoya (Gurjot Dhaliwal) chirrups about the wonder of Woolies and her scathing colleague Iqra (Prabhleen Oberoi) scoffs that she has been radicalised. Both Pakistani-born \u2013 Iqra is a politics student, Zoya a young wife \u2013 they bop and plan their futures, until they are joined by Faiza (Hannah Khalique-Brown), a mysterious holiday temp who knows more about them than seems plausible.<\/p>\n

Iqra initially describes the newcomer as \u201cBBCD\u201d (\u201cBritish-born confused desi\u201d). \u201cBritish Pakistanis are fascinating specimens,\u201d she sighs. But who is Faiza? A management stooge or spy for Zoya\u2019s in-laws? Or something far stranger? Even as the friends share secrets of the Pic \u2019n\u2019 Mix, simple questions open up a chasm of anxiety \u2013 on the tight square stage, the space between the three actors is tense and watchful. Secrets and surprises start to spill like a scatter of toffees.<\/p>\n

Supernatural stylings \u2026 Gurjot Dhaliwal, Hannah Khalique-Brown and Prabhleen Oberoi. Photograph: Alex Brenner<\/p>\n

As in his award-winning Brown Boys Swim<\/a>, Khan upends the dreaming spires version of Oxford usually favoured in fiction. His is a real city of unglamorous work and a strong British Asian community. Iqra seems unsettled at Brasenose College, while Zoya is saving for a return to Rawalpindi. Faiza has spent her whole life in Oxford, but, she says, \u201cit never really felt like my city\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sparkily performed and staged beneath a trio of bauble wreaths (design by Maariyah Sharjil), Adam Karim\u2019s production swoops on the supernatural stylings: spooky lighting, woozy yule tunes, snowglobes that oddly lack snow.<\/p>\n

In Dickens, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is the decisive figure in Scrooge\u2019s transformation. Here, an emissary from the future is enmeshed in conversations about what lies ahead, which can become wheel-spinningly circular in the second half. The future is all questions. Will dreams be fulfilled, friendship endure? Will Britain finally embrace its Muslim citizens? These aren\u2019t straightforward questions. But at least Woolworths isn\u2019t going anywhere \u2026 right?<\/p>\n

At Old Fire Station, Oxford<\/a>, until 21 December<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Karim Khan\u2019s absorbing Christmas play offers warmth, doubt, uncanny strangers and a generous handful of sweets from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-300633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}