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An audio adaptation of Harold Pinter’s Mountain Language – a play that acts as an indictment against the bans and regulations enforced upon speech during 1980’s Britain and the banning of the Kurdish Language in Turkey.


With: Lawrence Abu Hamdan

This performance is free but advance booking is required via Arnolfini Box Office on 0117 917 2300.

Written in 1988, Pinter’s Mountain Language dramatizes the story of a banned language from the mountains, yet he presents a world where the only language spoken by the characters is English (spoken by both oppressor and oppressed). Lawrence Abu Hamdan will highlight and enhance this confusion of oppressor and oppressed by staging an audio adaptation of the play performed behind a screen to disorientate the ears of the audience – positioning them as enforcers whose role it is to determine which of these voices are forbidden and which are permissible.

The performance continues the themes explored in Abu Hamdan’s Aural Contact project – a scrutiny of the ways in which what we hear is often distorted, manipulated and controlled to achieve political ends. Abu Hamdan will cast performers via a voicemail audition system, inviting participants to telephone an automated voicemail service reading lines from the play – and selecting eight characters.

This event will be streamed live via www.thisistomorrow.info