REVIEW: THE GODLESS WAR by Arif Silverman at Lion and Unicorn Theatre 21 - 25 January 2025

‘It was all there, talent, ability, confidence, there was no way this should have been anything less than a resounding victory. So what was going wrong? …’ ★★

This was a one man show about a fictional character who tells his story about his life. Of how he finds and conquers his true love then goes off to war. Written in an epic style reminiscent of the Arabian Knights, Homer’s Iliad, the poetry of al Mutanabbi or even Shakespeare, this tale tries for all its worth to be up there amongst the immortals. But, and you might be able to guess where we are going with this one, the best effort of a student from Rose Bruford was never really going to cut the mustard.

It was written in iambic pentameter though you would hardly be able to notice from tonight’s delivery. Perhaps it was the regularity of the iambic pentameter that strangled the dialogue and tied everything that was said down to the same tedious plod. Even though Arif Silverman was fighting against this every inch of the way; clearly here was an actor who had put in endless amounts of energy into his preparation and whose strength and ability were obvious. His expressiveness was varied and imaginative, his body language was bold and the whole performance was energetic, convincing and committed.

But like the fated heroic army of the story, he was always on a hiding to nothing and although our heroic soldiers eventually died, the one thing that was definite about Arif was that he was in no way about to suffer the same fate. Not by a long stretch of the imagination. In fact, he was so sure of himself, making regular eye contact with various members of the audience, that he often looked for the most part like a game-show host or an over confident but also annoyingly overbearing door-to-door salesman.

It was all there, talent, ability, confidence, there was no way this should have been anything less than a resounding victory. So what was going wrong? 

It would be easy to lay the blame somewhere else and say that the directing was uneventful and the whole play belted along at a constant pace which gave it no room at all to breathe. This might well have been the case. Maybe it was a little under par because it was the first night; the whole occasion leading to an overwhelming blunder that poured like an avalanche all over the front row. 

Whatever it was, something was wrong. My best guess is that here is a very good actor who is not so good a writer. Or perhaps the absence of first night hyper-ego might settle this piece down into the more subtle and nuanced masterpiece that he had always intended it to be.

I sincerely hope so.

BOX OFFICE https://www.thelionandunicorntheatre.com/whats-on 

Written and performed by Arif Silverman

Directed by Kazeem Akinsanya and Neha Hemachandra