The Phoenix that rose from the sand
- 8 minutes ago
- 2 min read
A Gain of Sand written by Elias Matar and performed by Sarah Agha at the Belgrade Theatre on 23 March 2026.
Review by Annette Kinsella.
An eleven-year-old girl full of fun, mischief and fart jokes – nothing unusual here. Except instead of entertaining her family and friends, Renad is homeless, alone and starving, a refugee orphan in the streets of Palestine.
A Grain of Sand, written by Elias Matar and performed by the amazing Sarah Agha, follows Renad’s story as first her house is bombed, then her family are missing, and finally the very place she sought shelter – the refugee camp – is also destroyed. Yet Renad refuses to abandon hope, drawing on her grandmother’s stories of the phoenix god to garner resilience in the darkest hours.
Coventry is a city defined by fire and rebirth, so this production feels especially resonant here. Like Renad, our city adopted the phoenix as its own symbol, its capacity for regeneration mirroring our hometown’s ability to rebuild. For Renad, the phoenix should be her saviour, its flaming tail feathers mirroring the incendiaries falling from the sky.
Except for Renad there is no saviour. The chilling conclusion ends with a written rolecall of all the children killed in Gaza to date. In Coventry, the image is disturbingly cyclical. I’ve written previously of my dad’s memories of the night of the Blitz, huddled under a kitchen table with my nan while Coventry burned around them. Nearly a century later, the geography has shifted to Gaza, but the terror remains. Through stories of her family and culture, Renad invites us inside the lives of children who seek a safety that no longer exists.
The production’s power is breathtaking: across generations and borders, children remain the primary currency of war.
At its centre is Agha. Holding the stage alone, she shifts perspectives with surgical clarity. Each child’s story is distinct but bound by a shared thread of survival. Her storytelling is disciplined, moving from innocence to horror with a control that makes the impact more hard hitting and tangible.
There are no flashy attention-grab or effects – the dialogue speaks for itself. By shunning melodrama for presence, Agha ensures the young voices are heard, not merely observed.
A Grain of Sand is not easy viewing. Instead it bears witness, demanding the audience listen and confront a bitter truth: history is not repeating, it is persisting, with children, as always, paying the ultimate price.
See what else is coming up at The Belgrade: https://www.belgrade.co.uk/
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