A Grain of Sand at Leeds Playhouse

A Grain of Sand comes to Leeds Playhouse as part of a UK tour by Good Chance, bringing a tightly focused, one-woman piece that centres on how war is experienced, processed and survived by children.

Written and directed by Elias Matar and performed by Sarah Agha, the show follows Renad, an 11-year-old girl from Gaza, on a journey to find her family. Along the way, she draws on stories told by her grandmother and the image of the Anqaa – a mythical Palestinian phoenix – as a way of navigating fear, loss and dislocation. Palestinian folklore is not used as metaphor or mood-setting here; it functions as a working language for endurance.

The script blends these folkloric elements with verbatim testimonies from children living in contemporary Gaza, drawn from A Million Kites. That combination gives the piece its structure and its ethical weight. Rather than attempting to represent the scale of war, A Grain of Sand stays deliberately small, allowing individual voices and details to accumulate meaning. The result is unsentimental and often difficult to sit with, precisely because it refuses spectacle.

Sarah Agha’s performance moves between narration, character and direct address with clarity and restraint. Design elements – sound, lighting and video – are used sparingly, supporting the storytelling without competing for attention. The focus remains firmly on language, testimony and the physical presence of the performer.

First commissioned by the London Palestine Film Festival and developed with Liverpool Arab Arts Festival, the show has been widely praised for its refusal to dilute its subject matter. It asks audiences not for pity or abstraction, but for attention and responsibility.

Expect a precise, contained piece of theatre that insists on one simple principle: that children’s voices matter, and that listening to them is a political act.