Scotland

Nowhere – Here and Now – Traverse Theatre

The Traverse has always been a home for ambitious, politically charged theatre, and Nowhere – Here & Now sits firmly in that tradition. Created and performed by Khalid Abdalla, the show is an urgent, deeply personal exploration of revolution, displacement, and identity. It is at once sweeping in scope and intimate in detail, and though its ambitions sometimes spill over into excess, the experience is powerful and memorable.

From the outset, Abdalla frames the performance with haunting questions: “This nowhere is safe. But there are places in the world where nowhere is safe. And when the unfathomable becomes persistent, where do you go?” That sense of uncertainty and statelessness runs through the performance, which draws heavily on his own experiences during the Egyptian uprising of 2011 to 2013. The catalyst for the Arab Spring, a Tunisian street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi who set himself alight after police confiscated his goods, is recounted with quiet gravity, before the show accelerates into Abdalla’s tear filled memories as protests reached boiling point. “It became a situation of them or us,” he recalls.

Threaded through these political stories is the presence of Abdalla’s late friend Aalam Wassef, the artist and activist who created the comic persona “The Balcony Man” during COVID, posting videos from his flat as the world locked down. Wassef, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2023, is not simply remembered in passing, he recurs like a motif, shaping the texture of the performance. Abdalla speaks of him with tenderness, grief and admiration, presenting him as both inspiration and comrade in the wider struggle against authoritarianism. His memory functions as testimony, as a thread that quietly binds the personal to the political.

One highlight comes mid show, when he uses a micro camera to project photographs of his life onto the back wall, laying them down rhythmically to the track The Rhythm of the Night. It is tactile, immediate theatre: actual photos, handled in real time, and finishing with the iconic image of the Twin Towers ablaze and the soundtrack becoming ever more distorted, highlighting the fracturing event of the early 21st Century, which changed everything forever. From there, Abdalla segues into a story about being cast in United 93 after a casting director muttered, “Poor you,” on hearing his background. It is a moment that distils his argument about representation and prejudice into something concrete, ironic, and painfully funny.

The set design is striking. A gauze stretched across the front of the stage creates three planes of interaction: projections at the back, Abdalla illuminated by a spotlight in the centre, and images appearing ghost like on the gauze itself. Ingeniously, the gauze is mounted on an elliptical track above the stage, so Abdalla must pull it around himself, adding a sense of fluid movement and control to the layered staging. The effect is extraordinary, at times the set feels as much the star as the performer. Elsewhere, Abdalla involves the audience directly, asking us to draw without looking, a reminder that creativity itself can be an act of resistance and joy.

The performance closes with a plea for peace in Palestine, delivered with passion and met by warm, if polite, applause from the audience. It is a fitting conclusion to a piece that insists theatre can, and must, speak urgently to the world outside its walls.

If the show falters, it is in its length. At ninety minutes, with no interval, it outstays its welcome slightly. Trimmed by twenty minutes, it would retain its impact without testing the patience of Fringe audiences used to the one hour standard. As it stands, Nowhere – Here & Now remains an affecting, inventive piece of theatre, one that sometimes meanders but ultimately lands with force

Times Vary – check venue – Till 24th August

https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/2025NOWHERF

Reviewer: Greg Holstead

Reviewed: 16th August 2025

North West End UK Rating: