Overview
- Press-night reviews in mid-June praised the production’s careful build of tension and called it an effective slow‑burn psychological horror.
- The play adapts Babak Anvari’s film to follow Shideh, a trainee doctor barred from study, as she cares for her daughter during the 1988 bombing of Tehran.
- Leila Farzad’s performance as Shideh drew wide acclaim for its emotional range and grounding of the piece, and the daughter role is played by a rotating young cast.
- Ben Stones’s single, highly detailed Tehran apartment set plus precise lighting, sound effects and staged power cuts create the show’s claustrophobic atmosphere.
- The Almeida run continues until 4 July and reviewers place the production within a wider 2026 rise in UK horror theatre, noting its political themes about gendered repression and wartime trauma.