The Mother of Kamal runs from 19th – 28th January 2024, Upstairs at the Gatehouse Theatre in Highgate. |

Playwright Dina Ibrahim is delighted to bring her new play The Mother of Kamal to Upstairs at the Gatehouse, in Highgate. The play will run from 19^th – 28^th January 2024. Based on real life events and inspired by Dina Ibrahim’s own father’s family memoir novel Um-Kamal (‘mother of Kamal’ in Arabic), the play revolves around the tumultuous events in the saga of a Jewish family, beginning in the slums of Baghdad in 1948 – where a dramatic new political tide was crashing in after WWII.

It takes us to the heart of Dina’s family’s history, from the under-reported world of a working-class Jewish-Arabic community in Baghdad in the turmoil of mid-century pre-revolutionary Iraq. Through the crucible of global historical events, up to the present-day diaspora, all is seen through the eyes of her own passionate, resilient grandmother (the eponymous ‘Um-Kamal’), who Dina herself will play in an all-too-rare lead role for a strong, but complex, middle aged female protagonist. It tells the story of Um-Kamal who carries a secret born of personal and political intrigue and who eventually reveals a truth so shattering that it threatens to tear her family irreparably apart. A true story that is both painful and funny, The Mother of Kamal shines a light on Middle Eastern politics, Jewish diaspora, family, truth and reconciliation and the need to reach out and prioritise peace.

With a diverse cast and crew which includes both Jewish and Arab members among many others, the play tells the story of an Iraq that many people in the modern world will not have known existed – as prior to 1935, when a slow but forceful ideological shift began to set in, the many different religions that made up the population of Baghdad had lived without religious conflict. But by the 1940s things truly began to shift, and anti-Jewish sentiments were on the rise.

Praise for The Mother of Kamal – Short run sold-out 4-night run at the 2023 Camden Fringe

“Surges with passion… intersperses beautifully judged comedy with the weightier elements of the piece.”

★★★★ Morning Star

“Crafts a Middle Eastern tale that unravels a web of secrecy [and] guilt.”

★★★★ Fringe Biscuit

“Dina Ibrahim’s writing shines. This is a show deeply passionate about the story it is telling, ambitious in both scope and form.”

London Pub Theatres Magazine