Review: Blood and Gifts - The Jewish Chronicle

American playwright JT Rogers has illuminated his country's murky, covert campaign of the 1980s to kick the Soviet army out of Afghanistan. By the end of this compelling modern history lesson, directed by Howard Davies and set mostly in Islamabad, we have a good impression of how the CIA colluded with Pakistan and the British to supply favoured warlords with weaponry, and ended up arming the very forces America and Britain are currently fighting in Afghanistan.

We also learn about betrayals between allies, and the unlikely loyalties that can emerge between enemies. To all this, Rogers adds more complications. James Warnock (Lloyd Owen), the American station chief in Pakistan, is haunted by how his country abandoned Iranian friends to the Islamic revolution, while perhaps most complex of all is the MI6 agent (Adam James) who knows more than anyone about the region's dangers, and is Jewish too. But although the evening is entertaining and delivered with skill and wit, Rogers is writing with no particular point of view. The result is thought-provoking but dramatically less than wholly satisfying. We want someone to blame for the mess and Rogers bravely refuses to deliver.