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An Everyday Story of Afghan Folk, written and directed by Liz Rigbey

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15-Minute Drama on BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4, 18-22 June 2012
 
Set in the wilds of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, An Everyday Story of Afghan Folk is based on a soap opera made by and for the Pashtun people of the area.
 
All the familiar ingredients of soap opera were there: familial conflict between members of Akbar Khan's (Sagar Arya's) family; his two sons and two wives, Gulnara (Pooja Ghai), and Sakina (Rakhee Thakra) - one young, pretty and rather scatterbrained, the other old, reliable and unattractive. There was also conflict; as a member of the village justice committee, Sardar Aka, the village shopkeeper (Madhav Sharma) led the enquiry to find out who had committed a tribal murder in the village.
 
As a piece of drama, An Everyday Story was well written, focusing especially on the interplay between individual characters, all of whom were familiar from other soaps - the dominant father, the submissive wife, the rebellious children. There were also suggestive thematic ingredients that drove the drama along - for example, the conflict between old and new values; patriarchy versus liberalism, freedom versus responsibility, and so on.
 
Despite the undoubted enthusiasm of everyone involved, I did not feel that the drama made enough of its cultural specificities - the setting is so remote (for western listeners, at least), that the translators could have perhaps tried harder to analyse its way of life in more detail, so as to promote inter- or cross-cultural understanding. Nonetheless I applaud the producer Anne-Marie Cole for her efforts in bringing the drama to our attention.