Aaron Kilercioglu’s play is ambitious. In seventy-five minutes, it covers over fifty years in the life of one family against the backdrop of Turkish and British history along with an investigation into the mystery of who in the first minutes of the show killed Mustafa on 15 July 2016, the day of the attempted coup by a faction of the army.
Coincidentally, his adult British-born son Berker (Luca Kamleh Chapman) arrives in Turkey that day to see his dad for the first time in eight years. Unfamiliar with the Turkish language, he is glad to meet at the hospital, for the first time in his life, his Turkish-born sister Elif.
The doctor delivers the news of his dad’s condition with the words, “Pew pew. Dead.” and then to demonstrate emotional support, gives him a tiny lollipop as consolation. That improbable moment got a huge laugh.
Berker insists on immediately investigating who killed his dad and wants Elif to help. However, she is already busy selling her dad’s house and has buyers visiting in the afternoon of the death. If that seems a bit improbable, it is also typical of a play that likes to stretch the believability of its story.
As Berker talks first to Elif and then in the year 2023 to local Turkish police tasked with the job of investigating who killed Mustafa (Tiran Aakel), we are given glimpses of his life. In the 1970s, he runs a London kebab shop where he met Berker’s mother Janice who popped in for food.
Later, anxious about his status after the 1979 UK election, he is drawn back to Turkey following the 1980 military coup, hoping to join the struggle for democracy. It leads to him being recruited as a spy by the Communists, the British, the Americans and an Islamist Revolutionary.
Not surprisingly, that little escapade gets him sentenced to five years in prison, but he is then linked up with the human rights defender Bahriye (Rosie Hilal), who helps get him released and becomes the mother of Elif (Dilek Sengul).
The police are by this time wondering what all this has to do with a motive for the murder or potential suspects and are beginning to think of retirement, but the audience, realising it is literary licence, rolls with the action.
Despite a fine cast, in particular Dilek Sengul whose facial expressions alone are impressive, the characters are fairly sketchy and the horrific historical backdrop is remote and tokenistic.
If you are curious why the title of the play accuses the EU of killing Mustafa, come see the play and the “alien lizards” will give you the key to that mystery.