All's fare in love and war

The Initiate

Image by Paines Plough

A tight circle, no props, scarcely any physical action except walking and talking – The Initiate is a great example of how a sharp script, three actors and a thoughtful director can make absorbing theatre.

The theatre itself is striking, too. It’s a self-contained 168-seat circular auditorium, currently in a tent close to the Hayward Gallery at the Southbank Centre, and can be loaded onto the back of a truck and transported to wherever there may be audiences.

The London taxi driver who is the centre of Alexandra Wood’s 90-minute play transports himself with equal facility to Somalia, which he left 20 years before, to negotiate with pirates for the release of a British couple.

His unexpected move, against his wife’s wishes, is provoked by his shock at being fired because some of his passengers have been spooked rather than charmed by his friendly approach – which often involves taking detours to show tourist spots – and by his son’s sudden unhappiness at school as a result of jibes about Somalis and piracy. Well-meaning dad thinks that by resurrecting his now fading links with his country of origin he might be able to secure the captives’ freedom while striking a blow against the British public’s stereotypes about Somalis, fuelled by Hollywood images of crazed pirates in films such as Captain Phillips.

His naivety takes a knock in an awkward conversation with his nephew in Somalia and an even bigger blow by his bruising confrontation with one of the kidnappers.

These verbal clashes are powerful and entertaining for the audience, and useful for The Initiate, who quickly has to update his own outdated perceptions of Somalia and is tempted to re-think his own life.

Wood’s approach is not to dwell on inner thoughts and motives, to probe the nature of Somali relationships or to explore in detail how events come about: instead, she tells a story, or more accurately, uses her flair for dialogue to let a story unroll, cutting out all clutter. The effect is heightened by actors doubling up and scenes tumbling out one after the other, forcing the audience to fill the gaps and keep up with the pace.

The downside is that the characters seem to be there for the story rather than for themselves, which limits the depth of the piece, but in a short space of time Wood manages to throw up a range of issues, on ethnicity, nationalism and migration and on how we present and are received by others.

• The Initiate is at the Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, SE1, until 18 July, £18. Info: 7960 4200

+ 16 June, post-show talk

+ A London cabbie takes on his toughest fare