Hold Still

A play set in contemporary London where the Feigel family harbours an asylum-seeker and grapples with the morality of the law and protecting ones’ family.

Rosa and Ben Feigel are a cosmopolitan progressive, dynamic, inter-racial North London couple. Rosa is the daughter of black South African exiles, Ben is of Jewish decent - the son of a man who escaped to the UK on Kindertransport. Their adored teenage son Oliver - full of political conviction, which his parents have encouraged - has hidden his closest friend, Imran, an asylum-seeking teenager from an unnamed country, in their home. When Ben and Rosa find out, they realise they are faced with just two options: turn the child over to the authorities knowing that he will be sent back to a dangerous country, or help him to hide and endanger themselves.

A bitter argument erupts between the Feigels about the morality of the law, the limits of empathy, what we will do to protect those we love, and what we might sacrifice for strangers. Hold Still is a vivid, deeply aff ecting portrait of a long-term marriage, and a family shaped by intergenerational trauma.