Find out what critics have had to say about Rajiv Joseph’s play, running in London until the 31st January 2026.
The Guardian: **** “The pace is baggy and the tragedy is diffuse, its drama undercut by cerebral questioning. The production’s most enraged moments are downplayed when it could go for the jugular. But the high-wire mix of comedy, horror and intellectualism is brave, the imagination and profundity a breath of fresh air in a theatrical landscape that cleaves to easy entertainment and distraction from darkness. Joseph stares into the Nietzschean abyss, sniggering, and it sniggers back.”
The Stage: ** “Absurdist comedy about the Iraq War suffers from a plot that’s missing in action.”
A Young(ish) Perspective: **** “A precarious play that teeters slightly too close for comfort, it is an unsettling reminder of the horrors these characters’ real-life counterparts continue to face, man woman and animal.”
Theatre & Tonic: **** “It’s the performances from individuals that make the show. Haj Ahmad plays Musa with a tortured delicacy, depicting the paradoxical ostracism faced by others in equivalent roles in real life; exploited by their US employers and banished from their community as a result. However, it’s Hunter’s tiger that shines. Only rehearsing days before as a last-minute stand-in for David Threfall, Hunter’s performance is bold and unflinching, making a stark commentary on the human condition in the style of a casual rockstar. The way she roared the final monologue, which describes animals visiting the zoo to view people, is spine tingling, leaving a distinct lasting impression of the show. “
All That Dazzles: **** “Difficult to stomach in places, perhaps too politically-minded in some places for some viewers, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo finds a delicate balance between the literal and metaphorical, the factual and the fantastical, and between humanity as we recognise it and the horrors we have all been made to behold. It’s challenging, it’s stirring, and it’s often surprisingly funny – it’s a show about a captive tiger, and about how no one else in that time was ever any less a prisoner.”
Time Out: **** “Elerian was born to direct this – the play suits his tricksterish style and capricious humour. Rajha Shakity’s flexible set is evocative, an eerie, nocturnal netherworld. There’s an Apocalypse Now-like cracked odyssey quality to the play’s depiction of a generation going mad in a chaotic, lawless conflict, but unlike the US-centricity of most of the great works about the Vietnam War, this takes a wider view of its impact on Americans, Iraqis, and even nature itself.”
London Theatre.co.uk: **** “And though the entire company is first-rate, Haj Ahmad provides an eviscerating evening’s emotional centre as a kind man pressed into service as a translator and, by extension, into the smouldering inferno around him. There’s “nothing left to garden,” we’re told simply but plaintively near the end in a play whose scorched-earth sensibility sends you reeling into the night.”
WhatsOnStage: *** “In fact, the whole play rails against sentimentality, an admirable tactic that forces us to face war like grown-ups but which has its downsides. The first act, grounded in the men’s experiences, might not let us weep, but it does let us feel. However, after the interval, as Baghdad fills with ghosts, the action becomes more abstract, the focus turns more intensely to existential and religious musings, and the philosophical overtakes the emotional.”
The Standard: **** “Gibson and Kene make a fine, serio-comic double act while Hunter and Ahmad are quietly magnificent (Hunter brought the house down on press night, joking about a missing blood bag without breaking character). Aki is disturbingly funny as Uday, though his big scene goes on too long and unbalances the first half. As a director, Elerian has a better feel for mood than he does for pace. Rajha Shakiry’s set is an effectively hostile assemblage of concrete, chains and a grinning mural of Saddam, where greenery suddenly blossoms like the garden of Eden.”
London. Theatre 1: **** “When theatres across the country are offering feelgood Christmas shows and traditional family fun-filled pantomimes, the innovative Young Vic Theatre spearheads this darkly comic, seriously thought-provoking play, exposing the ramifications of war through life and death, forcing each character to confront their own demons, and conveying the immense human cost of victory.”
The Reviews Hub: ** 1/2 “As a play about underlying emptiness, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo lacks clear focus and depends too heavily on easy laughter for its effects.”
Broadway World: **** “Ultimately, it is Joseph’s luminous script that makes the greatest difference. Pinging us between soul-searching monologues and macho bro talk, he cleverly skips us from scene to scene, each featuring no more than two or three characters engaged in intense dialogue. There’s a refined balance of comedy with dramatic depth that few plays this year have showed with this confidence.”
West End Best Friend: **** “Precarious but compelling. This is a history uncomfortably close, staged at what feels like the right time. A play that reminds us of the past isn’t finished with us, and neither are the questions we’d prefer not to ask.”
The Upcoming: **** “Joseph’s writing is a wonderful existential web that drips with dark humour. This results in a performance that’s funnier than some comedies while still delivering gut punches where it matters.”
Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo continues to play until the 31st January 2026.