Given how riveting the story of SOE agent Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan is, it’s surprising it hasn't been dramatised more often. There was another play in 2022, and now writer Stephanie Street tackles the challenge of bringing Noor’s short but eventful life to the theatre.
OUR VERDICT
Marc Brenner
Born in Moscow and of Sufi heritage, Noor became the first female wireless operator from the UK’s Special Operations Executive to face combat service abroad in France, work she astonishingly managed for months at a time when a mere six weeks was the usual operative’s ‘lifespan’ in the field.
As the play opens, it is October 1943, and Noor, codename ‘Madeleine’, has finally been betrayed, facing interrogation in Paris by a benign Gestapo officer, Ernst Vogt, who admires the prisoner’s spirit and unwavering courage as she refuses to capitulate.
Anna Yates’ effective set offers a sunken square populated only by two benches entirely surrounded by a colourful floor, and as the action progresses it is this centrepiece which anchors the drama as vignettes of Noor’s life are played out episodically.
Marc Brenner
With a piano in one corner signalling her musical gifts, we see her as a child, a young girl bidding a heartbreaking farewell to her father and then travelling overseas with her brother as the pair debate their options.
An all-female cast, deliberately chosen to reflect the variety of women’s expanding experience in WWII, offers some explanation of the key strands in Noor’s life, although sometimes quickly fluctuating scenes bring a sense of merely skimming the surface of Noor’s life.
Noor grew up in France, fluent in the language. She came from a pacifist background, but the Nazi occupation sent the family to England before she bravely chose to contribute to the war effort on the frontline. A gifted children’s writer, she defied conventional assumptions of what a female spy might be like.
As Priyanga Burford, who plays Noor, comments, “she seems to have been this very quiet, softly spoken person who turned out to be incredibly fierce with a huge amount of endurance.”
Marc Brenner
Her defiance of stereotype was what proved so appealing.
Writer Stephanie Steet says, “The sense that Noor defies a singular definition was really beguiling. I really wanted to crack open that sense of a person who defies categorisation, who can be understood for what she does as much as what she is,” and in this aim she certainly achieves her intention. One longs to have a clear idea of Noor’s motivations and her inner core, but perhaps when Street says she offers ‘a series of questions rather than offering clear resolution’ this is inevitable.
Also, she hopes people will feel kinship with Noor: ‘I would really like people to be feeling a sense of kinship with Noor//theatre is the strongest vehicle for empathy.’
Marc Brenner
Stephanie parries by saying theatre offers ‘the ability to present it as a series of questions rather than offering a clear resolution.’ Priyanga says of her character, ‘She seems to have been this very quiet, softly spoken person who turned out to be incredibly fierce with a huge amount of endurance.
Anna Yates's stripped-back set features an abstractly painted coloured floor, surrounding a sunken mesh square and a couple of benches. There is a continued use of Debussy's "Clair de Lune", played hauntingly by Kiah Arya on a small upright piano in the corner of the theatre. Nicola T. Chang's compositions come to the fore as the interrogations take a nastier turn, with discordant sounds and echoes.
Orange Tree Theatre
1 Clarence Street, Richmond, TW9 2SA
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Monday 12pm - 6pm Tuesday 12pm - 6pm Wednesday 12pm - 6pm Thursday 12pm - 6pm Friday 12pm - 6pm Saturday 12pm - 6pm Sunday Closed
