A British Subject Tickets

One of the most difficult moral mazes to navigate in the modern world is the question of punishment: how does one go about settling scores within a rigid system when in many cases real life is far more complex?  It is this issue that a new play by Nichola McAuliffe sets out to examine in a hard hitting and affecting way.

The play in question is A British Subject, which tells the true and tragic story of Mirza Tahir Hussain.  When Hussain was the age of only 18, he travelled to Pakistan, a decision that was to prove more life changing than he could ever imagine.  Within only a day of his arrival, tragedy struck.  A taxi driver that he had hailed revealed a gun, and, threatening him with it, attempted sexual assault.  Hussain resisted, and as the two men struggled with each other the taxi driver was mortally injured by a shot from the gun.

Though the killing was in self defence, Hussain was sentenced to death by hanging.  He was imprisoned in small cell, with views of the room in which he was due to die.  Hussain remained in that cell for eighteen years, during which time his youth passed away, as the two countries of Pakistan and Britain attempted to negotiate the problem.

Amongst this global scene, one man braved the system to visit Hussain.  Don Mackay, a journalist from the Daily Mirror, disguising himself under another profession, repeatedly visited Hussain and took up his case with a passionate personal intensity.  Between these two men a relationship blossomed as they attempted to take on the immovable cogs of global diplomacy.

The story is a meeting point between world politics and intense personal relationships, as well as celebration of the soul’s ability to remain strong under such awful pressure.

The fact that this piece was written by Nichola McAuliffe, the wife of the journalist Don Mackay, makes it all the more affecting and penetrating.  McAuliffe has not sourced her material from news clippings and research: she was right at the heart of these events as they were happening.  McAuliffe also appears in the play, giving it an eerie sense of realism.  You will probably remember her from her role in Coronation Street, but she is a well respected stage actor as well: in 1988 she won the Laurence Olivier Award for ‘Best Actress in a Musical’.