BBC Radio 4, 20 September 2013
Set during the Mau Mau era in
mid-1950s Kenya, The Broken Word focused on the experiences of Tom (Gunnar Cauthery), who returned to Kenya for his
last holiday before going to university. Ostensibly he was looking forward to a quiet life, but found himself caught
up in a gang of vigilantes trying to enact revenge on those members of Mau Mau who were fighting for Kenyan independence.
Chillingly narrated by Anton
Lesser, this production showed how distinctions between colonizer and colonized soon became irrelevant during this period.
Everyone involved in that conflict developed a thirst for blood - so much so that they were willing to kill their ostensible
enemies for any reason whatsoever. Questions of right and wrong no longer mattered: the entire British community, it
seemed, was out to wreak revenge on any Kenyans they encountered.
Tim Dee's production was chock full of violent, almost visceral language, depicting the sadistic
enjoyment everyone seemed to take in the act of killing. Tom became equally corrupted - so much so that when he returned
to England he found himself incapable of leading a normal daily life. This was a nightmarish world, made all the more
chilling by news of the terrorist attack on a shopping centre in Nairobi at the time when the play was broadcast.
