Going Through has received its UK premiere at The Bush Theatre, London.

It’s an intricately woven piece of storytelling that uses spoken word, BSL, Creative Captions, Visual Vernacular and Sound and Lighting Design to tell the story of a child who makes the precarious journey to Europe as a refugee. The original text was written by Estelle Savasta and translated by Kirsten Hazel-Smith and the piece is directed by Omar Elerian and designed by Rajha Shakiry with projections and creative captions by Nina Dunn and Laura Salmi, sound design by Elena Pena and lights by Joshua Pharo. 

Nina and her team helped to create the conceptual spaces that the narrative inhabits in close collaboration with Joshua Pharo (Lights) starting with a sharp language of moving shadows and silhouettes which evolves into a fragments of scrap-book type images and crumpled paper with creative captions that ‘come off the page’ to complement the language used on stage by Nadia Nadarajah and Charmaine Wombwell.

This was a process filled with learning on many fronts and it was a great opportunity to interrogate how we as theatre-makers go about telling stories.

The show was extremely well received by audiences and press alike receiving predominantly 4 and 5 star reviews.

The Stage ★★★★ WhatsOnStage ★★★★

Nour’s words are expressed in a kaleidoscope of meaning – with beautiful sign language, creative captions, distilled poetry, projected shadows and song.

The Guardian ★★★★

Rajha Shakiry’s ingenious set design creates a crumpled twist of mountains, surrounded by screens that house projections by Nina Dunn. Their cinematic realism evokes small images, like the taxi driver’s comically misjudged attempts to give Nour a cassette tape of music, or the wider shock of her arrival in a built-up new city.

Time Out ★★★★

To find out more and book tickets for the strictly limited run, visit: https://www.bushtheatre.co.uk/event/going-through/