Nowhere (Sydney Festival) ★★★★

Written by Khalid Abdalla. Fuel. Australian Premiere. Sydney Festival. Roslyn Packer Theatre. 13-17 Jan, 2026.

British actor and activist Khalid Abdalla brings his one-man testimonial, Nowhere, to Sydney Festival — a playful and sincere cry for recognition.

This is the story of a boy, born to a family of Egyptian activists, who grew up to become an actor. A mix of funny anecdotes, political awakenings, heartfelt losses and a belief in the importance of everyone’s core humanity. It’s a partial memoir with a motivating point to make.

Khalid Abdalla’s musings are decidedly non-linear, leaping from his experiences in film and TV to personal revelations amid the political uprisings in Egypt and the death of a close creative friend. This collage of moments builds, disparate piece by piece, into a portrait of “an Arab in a post-9/11 world”, as he puts it.

It’s clear Abdalla enjoys playing with the audience’s expectations. The difference between perception and reality is constantly in the air — from the gap between the Cambridge-educated Abdalla and the roles he’s been cast in (he notably played a terrorist hijacker in the Hollywood film United 93), to the way different accents change our idea of who he is. There is no fourth wall here, as he asks the audience questions about our own birthplaces and how we see ourselves. At times, Nowhere feels like a charming TED Talk.

Told with a blend of multimedia forms, Abdalla flips from physical photographs to video captured on his iPhone. Ti Green’s simple set includes multiple projection screens that layer the space, as though we’re moving through overlapping memories. As Abdalla races around the stage, a sense of child-like discovery guides us through these often avant-garde moments. One minute he takes us into an art class; the next, he’s making jokes about the lasting impacting of British colonialism — it’s quite the journey.

The stories Abdalla tells are consistently entertaining and often deeply moving. Yet they don’t always cohere into a clear narrative progression. Some anecdotes, while compelling in isolation, feel only loosely tethered to core of the show. Abdalla is definitely taking us somewhere, but he’s often choosing the scenic route there.

After inviting us into his personal pain and joy — the loss of close friends, the beauty of his children, and the racism he himself has faced — we come to understand the heart of the man and are open to hearing his words on the issues dividing Sydney and the world right now. This goes beyond anodyne “we just need to all get along” platitudes, becoming a much more human call for mutual compassion.

Abdalla resists reducing conflict to simple binaries. Instead, the work examines the messy, complex world we navigate — one in which “us vs them” mentalities are tearing us apart.

Nowhere is a winding journey through one man’s life (so far) and the realisations he’s had along the way. Deeply personal, it’s a confessional piece of theatre that asks us to meet each other with the empathy we hope for ourselves.