History rewritten

British-Kuwaiti writer/director Sulayman Al-Bassam plays with Middle Eastern ancient history to create The Mirror For Princes - which proves tricky should you be unfamiliar with Middle Eastern ancient history in the first place.

This rather bewildering rush of visual and aural stimuli swings around the life of Persian author and translator Ibn Al-Muqaffa, who had a significant role in the propagation of one of the masterpieces of Eastern literary culture, Kalila Wa Dimna.

Originally a Sanskrit collection of animal stories, whose main characters are the jackals Kalila and Dimna, these fables - intended to offer counsel to prospective rulers - travelled the world, and their leap from Pahlavi (literary Persian) to Arabic was effected by Al-Muqaffa in the eighth century.

Neil Edmond gives Al-Muqaffa an Arthur Dent-like air of pessimistic bemusement as the founding fathers of the newly established Abbasid Caliphate rush around creating their new capital in Baghdad, conspiring for power and murdering anyone in their way.

The parallels with today's sorry situation are drawn pretty clearly, as one "Colossus" usurps another, Iraqi cities burn and the people suffer.

But a loud live soundtrack drowns out some of the hard-working, mainly British actors and further distraction comes in the form of random video projections, recorded extracts from Kalila Wa Dimna and jackalheaded figures scribbling historical details on moving boards.

This is dense, demanding stuff and a chance to focus would have been much appreciated.

The Mirror For Princes