Sudden Violent Burst of Rain
'We all live under the same sky.
It's just that, beneath that sky, there's some arsehole saying, "Don't stand here, stand over there and shut your mouth."'
Elif shears sheep for a rich landowner. Every other waking hour she spends queuing outside the palace, hoping that the King will let her live within the city walls. She comes from a faraway land. She is searching for sanctuary. And this is what we call a 'hostile environment'.
Sami Ibrahim's play A Sudden Violent Burst of Rain is a poetic fable about an impenetrable immigration system that mirrors our own. It premiered in Paines Plough's Roundabout in 2022, including a run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as a co-production between Paines Plough and Rose Theatre, Kingston, in association with the Gate Theatre, London.
Sami Ibrahim’s other plays include a reimagining of Ovid’s Metamorphoses which he co-wrote when he was writer-in-residence at Shakespeare’s Globe, and two Palestinians go dogging which won the Theatre Uncut Political Playwriting Award and premiered at the Royal Court Theatre to critical acclaim.