RNIB Connect Radio’s Toby Davey is joined again by Vidar Hjardeng MBE, Inclusion and Diversity Consultant for ITV News across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands for the next of his regular audio described theatre reviews for 2025

This week we have the return of the stage adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling novel ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ to the Birmingham Repertory Theatre with description by Professional Audio Describer Carolyn Smith.

About A Thousand Splendid Suns

The Rep presents a powerful new production of A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini’s spiritual sequel to The Kite Runner.

In 1992 in an Afghanistan ravaged by war, an orphaned Laila is left alone in an increasingly threatening world. Her older neighbour Rasheed is quick to open his home and takes Laila as his second wife.

Rasheed’s first wife Mariam has no choice but to accept her younger, and now pregnant, rival. As the Taliban take over, life for all of them becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear, and the two women find themselves unlikely allies.

Former Rep and Hampstead Theatre Artistic Director Roxana Silbert returns to Birmingham to direct this unflinching, life affirming drama, in which love grows and sustains the human spirit even during the hardest of times.

Musical inspiration drawn from Afghanistan’s 1970s musical heritage, including works by Ahmad Zahir and Abdul Rahim Sarban

There are further audio described performances of A Thousand Splendid Suns -

Nottingham Theatre Royal - Thursday 22 May, 6.30pm and Saturday 24 May, 2.30pm. 

Leeds Playhouse - Friday 13 June, 7.30pm and Saturday 14 June, 2pm.

For more about access at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre do visit the access pages of their website - https://www.birmingham-rep.co.uk/your-visit/accessibility/

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