REVIEW: A GRAIN OF SAND @ THEATRE ROYAL PLYMOUTH

🎭 A Grain of Sand

📍  The Drum, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Royal Parade, Plymouth, Devon, PL1 2TR

🗓 Tuesday 17th March 2026

⭐️ 4 Stars

COMPELLING AND DISTURBING

Renad, eleven years old, young as a rose, huddles with her family in their home, somewhere in Northern Gaza. Outside the Israeli airstrikes rage yet again. The family shake with fear. Grandmother Siti tries to reassure them with ancient stories of the phoenix Al-Anqaa who comes in times of calamity to rise again - as they will. Then comes a strike which destroys the home and forces Renad into the chaos of the streets, where are her family? 

Renad cries out to Al-Anqaa, “Al-Anqaa will come!” Her belief is strong as she walks through the sand to find her beloved family and safety. She is a storyteller, like her Siti, she tells us. The familiarity of the folktales shared through her childhood keep her strong as she negotiates her way through the twisted metal and devastation around her. Renad reaches the hospital where her brother was taken when he fell off a swing. Surely her family will have come here! Hospitals are safe places… 

Sarah Agha as Renad is both delightful and totally compelling. She maintains her childlike stance throughout making eye contact with her audience and sharing her family’s wisdom and beliefs happily. Her life tenets support her even though she is alone and afraid. She mimics her elders with love and great charm. The changes as she wavers, tires and hungers are so subtle, yet we feel her weary anguish weighing heavier as her hope fades. There is no adult rage here but rather a child’s confusion at the “metal monsters” and intense grief. The sinister undertones are there for us to see but not for her child’s perception. For her everything she understands about the world has been overturned and she is rudderless. Her soothing folktales seem increasingly at odds with her terrifying reality. 

Every now and then Agha steps out of character into a literal and metaphorical spotlight to quote from one of Gaza’s children, these quotes, taken from the book A Million Kites, are projected onto the simple backdrop of the set. Projected are images of a phoenix, tracer fire, bombs and a beach which embellish the narrative. Natalie Pryce’s set consists only of this curtain backdrop, a plain chair and a mound of gritty sand, reinforcing how little is left of normal life in Gaza. The sand, contained at first but becoming progressively more scattered and dispersed as Renad’s distress grows and overwhelms her. Most poignantly slipping through Renad’s fingers as she watches the seemingly endless list of names of the lost children of Gaza scroll before us all. 

Written and directed by Elias Matar, Renad’s powerful story is woven from and interwoven with testimonies from the experiences of the children of Gaza. Innocent victims of a horror they can’t begin to comprehend. It is both an elegy to those children and an appeal for help in the name of those still living in this hell. 

Rosie Sharman-Ward

All views are my own and I pride myself on being honest, fair and free from influence. Theatre is subjective and it is important to remember that all views expressed are just those of one person.

My ticket for this performance of A Grain of Sand was gifted by Theatre Royal Plymouth who invited me to watch the show on behalf of Pink Prince Theatre in exchange for my honest review. The fact that my ticket was gifted played no part in the content of my review or the star rating given.

RUNNING TIME (approx):

1 hour, with no interval

CONTENT WARNINGS: 

Flashing lights; Haze; Tobacco depiction; Loud music and noise (including bomb and gunfire sound effects); Set in modern day Gaza; Themes of war, trauma, and distress to do with children

AGE GUIDELINE:

14 +

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