Review: THE TRIAL, National Youth Theatre
Very funny and very scary update on Franz Kafka's nightmarish vision
It’s nearly three years since I last ventured up the Holloway Road to the National Youth Theatre for their splendid Ada and everything and nothing has changed.
Since 2026, the headwinds, always blowing hard into the faces of young people making their way in theatre, have only intensified as arts education is further diminished, privilege entrenched. Moreover a new, possibly existential, threat looms, Artificial Intelligence not even warranting a mention in that review above.
But nothing has changed too. The talent, the energy, the sheer belief required to face down a future wracked with uncertainty, crackled through the house. Harness that, British Theatre, and you can survive anything.
Incredibly, this play was put together in just five days, an achievement so astounding that it makes me wonder what pros do with all that rehearsal time! Presented as part of the StoryFest26 showcase of ten new plays, Mohammed-Zain Dada’s script updates Franz Kafka’s dystopian novel for the ICE age.
Now, in a world of arbitrary arrests (we have plenty here too - ask the oldies holding placards at Gaza demos if the UK is immune) that may feel like low-hanging fruit, but Dada’s script is funny and clever and never pushes too hard on the didactic element. That speaks to a key lesson learned for any playwright - trust your audience. You'd be surprised how many don't.
In so brief a timescale for rehearsal, his vision has been realised with razor-sharp clarity by director, Ameera Conrad. She leans a little into the ensemble work one sees in Ryan Cameron Calais's seminal For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy, itself an “After…” play. The movement of the cast circling Josef K (Siena Galea Tudor) as the state sucks him into its vortex of oppression, captures the confusion and fear he feels as his initial disbelief fades. A very funny scene illustrates the frustration attendant on our everyday Kafkaesque experience of dealing with call centres and apps, something about which British Gas is err… gaslighting us right now. We all have a dog in K's fight.
The most clear inspiration is Dario Fo, Kafka’s Italian cousin. Farce is, of course, devilishly difficult to do technically, but one sees the green shoots of a full-on comic version of The Trial in this work with the actors finding the exaggerations and timing the genre demands and catching the edge that always sharpens Fo’s scalpel.
As for K, well Kafka did not live to finish his novel, though the politicians of today are making a decent fist of it. K himself might smile thinly at the fact that he has proved immortal due to the venality of those who seized his freedom and his life living on from one generation to the next.
Back in Holloway Road, the kids have dreams rather than nightmares - the origin story of anything that’s any good - and they have good people around to help them. They also have some examples who once did the same thing, including James Graham, Daniel Craig, Daniel Day-Lewis, Timothy Dalton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Colin Firth, Derek Jacobi, Ben Kingsley, Ian McShane, Helen Mirren, Lysette Anthony, Rosamund Pike, Regé-Jean Page and Kate Winslet.
Metaphorically, Wilde probably had it right “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Well, that’s quite a galaxy to light the way for these young people, our best hope to memorialise K by making his story fiction once and for all.
The Trial is at the National Youth Theatre until 25 July
You can read more about StoryFest26 here and The National Youth Theatre here.
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