The Bridge: Edinburgh Preview

Thursday 30 & Friday 31 July, 7.30pm

£15 | £5 Residents

Award-winning Palestinian actor and comedian Alaa Shehada brings his high-energy mix of storytelling, stand up and physical comedy to the story of The Bridge, as he travels from his home in the West Bank of Palestine to Jordan.

Alaa carries with him a large yellow container of this year’s olive oil from his family’s harvest – a gift of separation from his mother in Jenin for her sister in Amman. In the heat of the Jordan Valley, alongside thousands of other Palestinians, to make this journey Alaa must cross the Palestinian, Israeli occupation and Jordanian checkpoints which form ‘the bridge’. This is the only way Palestinians in the West Bank are permitted to leave or return home.

The Bridge also traces the history of the British in Palestine, and during his journey, the symbolic significance of the crossing for Palestinians is told through Alaa’s own tale and the stories of the characters who join him on this bizarre road trip.

Following the sell-out tour of his Scotsman Fringe First-winning 2025 show, The Horse of Jenin, Alaa returns with a story dedicated to the thousands of Palestinians who make this journey every day. He dreams of Palestinians one day having their own airport and finds humour in the everyday realities of life under occupation in this extraordinary tale of family and connection, hope and joy, set against the brutal truths of broken colonial promises in Palestine.

Credits

Written and performed by Alaa Shehada
Co-written and directed by Sam Beale
Movement direction: Micaela Miranda
Music and sound design: Julius Pollux Rothlaender
Lighting design: Lily Dawford
Produced by Palestine Comedy Club/Qasim Selam
Duration: 70 mins

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