Review: Nightwatchman, Double Feature, National Theatre

Written for Culture Wars



Prasanna Puwanarajah’s ambitious monologue probably overreaches itself, trying to tackle sport, family, national identity and Sri Lanka’s civil war all at once. To be fair, it comes pretty close and, thanks to a charismatic performance from Stephanie Street, is both clear and engaging. Were it more compact, certainly less prone to repetition, it would be a really robust, heartfelt and, what’s more, digestible piece of political theatre.



Street plays Abirami, a British-Tamil cricketer called up to the England Women’s Squad for the first time to face Sri Lanka in an international test. The night before, she’s in the nets, facing up to a bowling machine and turning over the political and personal repercussions of her time at the crease.



Puwanarajah’s text is brilliant at melding its subjects together, in particular the familiar metaphor of sport and war.



As the invisible balls hammer down the wicket – sometimes knocking a stump or a hanging light above her, despite being present only through Carolyn Downing’s considered sound design– Abirami grows aggressive. In both her politics and her natural batting style, she is a slogger, tonking balls and smashing rhetoric around. The frustrations of Tamil stereotypes and her father’s placidity get the better of her.



Her eventual decision – and it becomes a rather moving display of determined strength – is to remain at the crease at all costs. To temper her natural style, her desire to hit a six over the Lord’s pavilion, in order to stand against the Sri Lankan force used against the Tamils. So, channelling Michael Atherton’s two day stand against South Africa and Alan Donald in 1998, Street plays rigid backwards defensive after backwards defensive. Stepping out for England becomes an act of passive resistance.



Yet the text can be equally stiff, sticking so firmly to the three subjects that it has a tendency to drone.



There comes a point where Nightwatchman takes its eye off the ball, so to speak, and drives its argument home too directly. Instead, it’s best when the real subject matter is chopped so fine that its hidden within the overall, like vegetables smuggled into a Bolognese sauce. That Abirami is constantly apologising for the subject matter (“I can’t believe we’re talking about this”) suggests unease on the writer’s part.



Credit then must go to Street herself, whose performance – if not necessarily always her cricketing technique - is spot-on. She’s muscular and rousing without letting go of a chink of vulnerability. You get swept up in her passion. Cricket matters. This matters.



Photograph: Johan Persson