★★★★☆The annual new writing festival celebrates its tenth birthday this year, with five plays, among them premieres by Theresa Ikoko and Elinor Cook. Both are pungent, provocative works exploring what it means to be female in today’s world, but Ikoko’s Girls exerts by far the fiercer grip. The teenagers Tisana (Abiola Ogunbiyi), Ruhab (Yvette Boakye), and Haleema (Anita-Joy Uwajeh) have been kidnapped by Boko Haram. In Elayce Ismail’s almost unbearably taut production, they bicker, comfort each other, stitch black flags and tell stories: fantasies about Beyoncé or “Princess Kate”, old bedtime tales, snatches of TV shows. Tisana, repeatedly beaten for…

Source: The Times September 12, 2016 15:56 UTC