This fiercely political play brims with anger and indignation. It has an important story to tell about how international aid, however well intentioned in origin, can lead inexorably to debt and dependence in countries of the Global South (formerly known as the Third World). Christine Bacon’s attempt to dramatise this political message comes alive in fits and starts, but the furious power of her righteous indignation too often overwhelms the storytelling. The story itself is all too clearly true, but the telling is likely to appeal chiefly to those already converted.
Jo is an aid worker with family roots in international development: her American grandfather helped Harry S Truman launch the idea in his 1949 inaugural address. After many years working on aid projects — healthcare, girls’ education and micro-business initiatives — she takes up a new post in Kenya and meets a young activist, Kala, who is involved in a mass campaign urging the government to reject a package of economic measures demanded by the IMF as the price of a new loan. Initially sceptical, Jo gradually comes to accept Kala’s analysis: that the IMF loan will harm those whom aid is intended to help, while enabling neo-colonial Western businesses to become the dominant force in the Kenyan economy. When Kala is abducted by paramilitary thugs, Jo is drawn into a battle to expose the devastating damage that IMF financial orthodoxy is inflicting on the Global South.
Jo is well played by newcomer Ella Bryant, who manages the shift from naïve aid worker to passionate campaigner for the rights of the Third World poor as well as the script allows. Her sense of powerlessness as she attempts to alert the world to the abduction of Kala, a peaceful protester, feels all too real. Yet the question of how she could spend years working in international aid without seriously confronting these issues is never really addressed. Georgina Rich, as Laura, the manager of the aid agency in Nairobi, articulates mainstream views about the value of aid, while Kevin Trainor, as Elio, attempts to justify the IMF’s economic strategies. Both do their best, but they are speaking lines written by an author whose sympathies clearly lie elsewhere.
The play is mostly set in Nairobi but makes sudden jumps to Washington, Iraq and Crimea. These shifts help to tell the story and soften the audience’s sense of being lectured. The scenes portraying the relationship between Jo and Kala, played by the excellent Grace Saif, offer moments when the drama genuinely comes alive, but they quickly sink beneath the weight of the statistics marshalled to prove the author’s point. The facts and figures are compelling, but they do not necessarily make for compelling drama.
The play is described as a response to Jason Hickel’s book ‘The Divide’. It is clearly the author’s intention to create a drama that will draw more people to the ideas explored in that book and put a human face on complex economic theories. Director Charlotte Westenra has worked hard to achieve precisely that. Both are partially successful, and there are moments when the connection between theoretical analysis and human suffering is sharply illuminated. Yet the overall impression is of a political thesis searching for a story to latch onto.
Venue: Arcola Theatre, Dalston
Author: Christine Bacon
Director: Charlotte Westenra
Performers : Ella Bryant, Georgina Rich, Grace Saif, Kevin Trainor
Running time: 1 hours 30 minutes (without interval)
Until 4th July 2026