Octopus

Octopuses have mixed-up genes. Where human DNA is neatly ordered, the octopus genome is a jumble of chromosomes – hence eight legs, three hearts and smelling with their feet. One zoologist described them as aliens.

In Afsaneh Gray’s play, octo-genes become a confused metaphor for national identity. In a multicultural society, she suggests, a mixed heritage is as British as tea in the rain. In a queue. With the Queen. At Wimbledon.

Gray posits a future of mandatory nationality tests. Three women wait their turn; each defiant in their Britishness. British-Asian Sara (Alexandra D’Sa) sees herself as the model Brit – an accountant more than paying her way. Scheherazade (Dilek Rose) wears Union Jack leggings and plays in a punk band, and Rebecca Oldfield’s Sarah is a white woman with a Home Counties accent. And, it turns out, a Jamaican grandfather.

Each reflects an aspect of national identity—cultural, ancestral, historical—but quotas make Britishness a relative quality. Those at the bottom get bunged onto boats, and Gray shows how such systems are open to abuse, putting lives at the whims of individual officials.

Octopus never really finds its own logic. Gray doesn’t flesh out the future fully enough, and its characters—broad though they are—behave bizarrely, bursting into song at the slightest opportunity. The lunacy might mirror that of an arbitrary bureaucracy, one that sends people doolally, but it’s so off the wall it loses sight of reality. As the women stand their ground, Gray makes her point, but a tightly-wound sketch could have done the same.