The Empire

Description

"Patch you up, all nice like, splint, bandage your leg. All very civilized actually. But then. Then. We hand you over." Helmand in the height of summer. Gary, a British soldier, and Hafizullah, his Afghan colleague, guard an injured young prisoner, Zia, found in the heat of battle. Gary wants answers, Hafizullah just wants to make it through the day and Zia thinks there has been a big mistake. Surrounded by intense heat and violence, the characters' moral codes are tested to the limit. DC Moore's second play dissects the politics of occupation, home and abroad. With both painful and witty insight, he explores some of the lengths humanity is stretched to under the circumstances of war. The strong characterisation enjoys a healthy dose of humanity and the politically-charged subject is handled with subtlety and atypical nuances. The Empire is an amusing and sometime shocking insight into life in the Afghanistan war.

D.C Moore was part of the Royal Court's Young Writer's Programme in 2004-5 and his first full length play ALASKA was produced there in 2007 starring Rafe Spall in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs. In 2008, for ALASKA, David was awarded the inaugural Tom Erhardt Bursary by the Peggy Ramsey Foundation which is given to support promising playwrights. His other theatre credits include BRITNEY (dir. Sacha Wares, Royal Court Ignition) in 2008, LATER (Paines Plough/Trafalgar Studios) in 2007 and JULIUS (Latitude Festival) in 2006.