As bombs fell on the capital, a Bengal tiger was left all alone – until a US marine shot it. Rajiv Joseph explains why he brought the beast back from the dead for his Pulitzer-nominated drama

A play that dramatises the thoughts of a tiger on the bombed-out streets of Baghdad sounds outlandish. But Rajiv Joseph’s drama is rooted in a real incident during the invasion of Iraq. “I read the story,” he says, “that detailed how US bombs had blown open part of the zoo. The Bengal tiger had remained in its pen. All the zookeepers had fled, so this poor tiger was sitting there starving. One of the soldiers, who tried to feed it out of compassion, got his hand mauled. Another soldier shot and killed it.”

It was 2003. The war was under way and Joseph, in his late 20s, was on a master’s programme at New York University. He took the tiger’s death as the starting point for a play with an absurdist kind of magical realism. After it is killed, the big cat returns as an anthropomorphic Dantean figure to interrogate the nature of God and the point of existence, all while padding around this hell on earth.

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Citizens theatre, Glasgow
Lewis Hetherington’s reworking of the 18th-century fable is creepy and creative, serious and scary

It is a rare for a family show to be both funny and spine-tinglingly creepy, but an achievement playwright Lewis Hetherington pulls off in his imaginative reworking of the 18th-century fable . You would expect one to cancel out the other, but here the narrative cracks forward with such certainty, you can afford the odd moment to laugh.

It is funny that Baron Aaron (Tyler Collins) is deep in denial about his failed shipping business; that Beauty (Israela Efomi) carries with her a copy of an etiquette manual called How to Be a Lovely Young Lady; that her sister, Bright (Holly Howden Gilchrist), cares more for inventions than everyday expressions of affection; that the cat and dog (Michael Guest and Martin Donaghy) are falling ever so sweetly in love; and that the housekeeper Mrs Flobberlyboo (Elicia Daly) has a taste for modernist singing that makes the rest of Nikola Kodjabashia’s angular score seem conventional.

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As bombs fell on the capital, a Bengal tiger was left all alone – until a US marine shot it. Rajiv Joseph explains why he brought the beast back from the dead for his Pulitzer-nominated drama

A play that dramatises the thoughts of a tiger on the bombed-out streets of Baghdad sounds outlandish. But Rajiv Joseph’s drama is rooted in a real incident during the invasion of Iraq. “I read the story,” he says, “that detailed how US bombs had blown open part of the zoo. The Bengal tiger had remained in its pen. All the zookeepers had fled, so this poor tiger was sitting there starving. One of the soldiers, who tried to feed it out of compassion, got his hand mauled. Another soldier shot and killed it.”

It was 2003. The war was under way and Joseph, in his late 20s, was on a master’s programme at New York University. He took the tiger’s death as the starting point for a play with an absurdist kind of magical realism. After it is killed, the big cat returns as an anthropomorphic Dantean figure to interrogate the nature of God and the point of existence, all while padding around this hell on earth.

Continue reading...

Brilliant biopics, daring documentaries and a host of chillers and thrillers – our critics pick the best from another sensational year of cinema

• More on the best culture of 2025

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Brilliant biopics, daring documentaries and a host of chillers and thrillers – our critics pick the best from another sensational year of cinema

• More on the best culture of 2025

***

Continue reading...

Brilliant biopics, daring documentaries and a host of chillers and thrillers – our critics pick the best from another sensational year of cinema

• More on the best culture of 2025

***

Continue reading...

Home Office has reportedly ordered threat assessment amid long-running row into Duke of Sussex’s safety

Prince Harry’s security arrangements while in the UK are being reviewed by the government, according to reports.

Harry wrote to the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, shortly after her appointment and submitted a formal request for a risk assessment to the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec), which is overseen by the Home Office, a source close to the prince said in October.

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Home Office has reportedly ordered threat assessment amid long-running row into Duke of Sussex’s safety

Prince Harry’s security arrangements while in the UK are being reviewed by the government, according to reports.

Harry wrote to the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, shortly after her appointment and submitted a formal request for a risk assessment to the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec), which is overseen by the Home Office, a source close to the prince said in October.

Continue reading...

Home Office has reportedly ordered threat assessment amid long-running row into Duke of Sussex’s safety

Prince Harry’s security arrangements while in the UK are being reviewed by the government, according to reports.

Harry wrote to the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, shortly after her appointment and submitted a formal request for a risk assessment to the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec), which is overseen by the Home Office, a source close to the prince said in October.

Continue reading...