Occupational Hazards review, Hampstead Theatre

Set in Iraq, Occupational Hazards is the true story of Rory Stewart, a 30-year-old diplomat who in 2003 unexpectedly finds himself governing a province of nearly 1 million people. Yes, that's right, a young man with a book-based knowledge of marsh Arabs was put in charge of a province the size of Northern Ireland. Stewart's romanticised expectation that he will reconcile the warring factions in Maysan and introduce the rule of law, is soon upended. He speaks both the language of the region and the language of peace, but has no grasp of the deep tribal enmities that divide the people, or the growing threat from religious fundamentalism. He holds democracy aloft like a missionary holds a bible in a jungle clearing circled by tigers.

My twenty-something companion was incensed by this perspective. "Another tale of white saviours bringing peace to brown savages incapable of negotiation," she growled. "He gets a personality and back story, while Iraqi history is reduced to a shaming reminder to the savages that they are letting down their ancestors." The shaming referred to is a scene in Occupational Hazards where Stewart uses an old Babylonian tablet on which the first recorded language is still visible, to reason with local chiefs. Iraqis were the first people to have language and laws, he says. Returning to a state of order should surely be second nature... Did we ever really believe it was that simple?

It is also true that Stewart's character is fleshed out, albeit sketchily - he walked across Afghanistan for the hell of it, before returning to his family's Scottish estate to plant 400 trees. Conversely, the Iraqis are a serious of thumbnails: the politician, the fundamentalist, the policeman, the academic, the token woman. No sense of what makes them tick. The problem is not, one suspects, Stewart's story, so much as the way playwright Stephen Brown has centred the action around the inept idealist. You're acutely aware that big swathes of detail are missing. It feels more like an outline for a play than the final cut.

In conclusion: Stewart, currently our Minister for International Development, was clearly starred from an early age. Better developed, Occupational Hazards could illuminate some of the darker corners of the Iraq narrative. In it's current 90 minute form, it's trite. Henry Lloyd -Hughes is a likeable Stewart. The rest of the cast is short-changed on characterisation.


Occupational Hazards, Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, NW3.  Run ends 3 June.