AFGHANISTAN IS NOT FUNNY Comes to the Arcola Theatre Next Month

Following critically acclaimed seasons at the Edinburgh, Hollywood and Adelaide Fringe Festivals in 2022, playwright Henry Naylor returns to The Arcola Theatre this year with the highly anticipated London premiere of his multi award-winning autobiographical new play, Afghanistan Is Not Funny.

In 2002, UK comedian and 3-time Edinburgh Fringe First winner Henry Naylor went to the Afghan Warzone with photographer Sam Maynard to conduct research for Naylor's Edinburgh Fringe play Finding Bin Laden. They were threatened by a war criminal, captured by the Mujhadeen, and almost blown up by the Taliban. In this honest, moving and sometimes hilarious true story, Naylor relays how the trip transformed him from a stand-up to a leading playwright.

Afghanistan Is Not Funny is a timely and timeless work, not only because Afghanistan has fallen under Taliban rule again, but also because its themes of warfare - and its impact upon a shell-shocked population - resonate with the events in Ukraine.

Recognition for the play includes the Soho Playhouse Medal for Dramatic Excellence, (Edinburgh Fringe 2022); Best International Show, Platinum Medal, Tvolution, Best International Show, TVO Awards and Best of the Broadwater (all at Hollywood Fringe 2022); Best Theatre and Adelaide Critics' Circle Award Winner (both Adelaide Fringe 2022). Having already been chosen as one of British Theatre Guide's Picks of 2022, in December the play was officially selected as one of only 14 shows for the Fringe Encore Series in New York - The Best of the Best of World Fringe.

The show will be illustrated by slides of Sam Maynard's stunning photos.

Henry Naylor is a multi-award-winning UK playwright, who has been described as 'one of our best new playwrights' in The Times, 'one of our best new playwrights' in The Evening Standard, and 'one of the finest British writers on contemporary events,' in Theatre Extra. In the past few years his plays have won, or been nominated for more than 45 international awards, including one of France's most prestigious awards for the arts, the Globes De Cristal (France's equivalent of the Golden Globes). His play Angel was not only named one of the Times' 10 Best Plays of the Year in 2016, but Torch Theatre's recent production was named as one of the top Welsh Productions of 2022 by both Wales Arts Review and Nation Cymru.

Naylor is one of only a handful of writers to have won the Fringe First at the Edinburgh Fringe three times and has also won four of the top five Fringe awards in Edinburgh, including the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award. Four of his plays have had month-long runs off-Broadway, and Angel played for three months in Paris' equivalent of the West End. To date his work has been translated into seventeen languages.

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