“I’M NOT going to let you get shot and see him before me,” says grieving Palestinian mother Nahla in Dalia Taha’s moving and beautifully observed new play Fireworks. “No-one in this family gets to die before me.”

The “him” is her dead son Ali, killed by a rocket in occupied Gaza. It’s one of the most arresting lines in a play full of sharp, powerful writing that speaks to the grief and suffering behind the headlines from Gaza.

Nahla hangs Ali’s martyr poster and photograph on the wall of their drab apartment. The frame has been smashed by sister Lubna, played by Shakira Riddell-Morales in a performance that tugs at the heart strings. Later, she confesses that she did it because she thinks her mother doesn’t love her as much as her dead brother.