Production company Vertov Film Theatre is bringing Dünyada to Camden Fringe this August, in internationally acclaimed actor and director Mehmet Ali Nuroğlu’s visceral, high-intensity solo performance.
The production arrives in London fresh from Istanbul’s underground theatre scene, offering an evocative exploration of migration, identity drift, and the fragile necessity of being witnessed in a digital age.
“Dünyada, meaning “in the world”, is a formally adventurous solo theatre that tears the fabric of one-person play through cinematic camera work, visual extension and sound design.
Nuroğlu performs a dual role as both actor and live cinematographer, walking the thin line between the mundane duties of keeping things going and the emotional disorder of remembering (like all of us). In a raw, technical struggle, he manages lighting and soundscapes in real-time, creating a parallax between his physical body and his digital ghost.
The production transforms the audience from mere spectators into active material, as the camera turns to film the watchers, projecting their silent presence into the heart of the monologue.”
Where: The Cockpit
When: 3-4. 9 Aug
Ticket link: https://camdenfringe.com/events/dunyada/
Producer Ziyi Cao tells us more about the show.
What’s your show about, and where did the idea come from?
Dünyada is an experimental solo performance about a stranger trying to recall where he comes from, where he belongs, and whether such a place even exists.
It begins as a monologue, and very quickly becomes something else. The performer is alone on stage, but he is also accompanied by yours and my presence. The viewer becomes part of the world of the play. One audience member may become a father, a friend, or a ghost from the past.
The piece is inspired by Will Eno’s Title and Deed, a text that speaks with great humour and sadness. It has a very particular rhythm: sketchy on the surface, with philosophical weight underneath.
What drew us to it was the feeling that this is the story of one displaced person. And that it is also a very contemporary condition. So many of us live between languages, countries, cultures, homes, versions of ourselves. We are surrounded, yet often feel more isolated than ever.
Dünyada comes from Istanbul’s independent theatre scene, and this is its UK debut. Bringing it to London feels like extending the question of the play itself; what happens when a soul leaves one home and tries to find another?
Sell it to the potential audience in one sentence.
Come for a stranger’s story; leave having seen your own inside it.
Why did you want to be part of the Camden Fringe?
Camden Fringe feels like the right place for this work because it gives space to forms that are not easily categorised. Dünyada comes from Istanbul’s independent theatre scene, and this is its UK debut. Bringing it to London feels like extending the question of the play itself: what happens when a soul leaves one home and tries to find another?
We also wanted the production to meet audiences in a festival setting, where risk, curiosity and small-scale international work can breathe. Camden Fringe gives a piece like this a chance to arrive in London with openness around it.
What’s your favourite memory of Fringe theatre?
Camden Fringe has a slightly unfair advantage here: it is Dünyada‘s first Fringe, and we are already quite sure it will become our favourite memory.
The show is still very young in its international life. It was born in Istanbul, and now it is arriving in the UK for the first time. So our Fringe memory is still being made — probably somewhere between the first audience walking into The Cockpit, the first face appearing on screen, and the moment this Turkish piece realises it has found a room in London.
That feels very close to the heart of the show: a stranger arrives somewhere new, carrying a whole world with him, and waits to see who will recognise him.
What’s next for you/the show?
In a strange and somewhat painful way, the next step for Dünyada now echoes the journey of the man inside the play.
The work was born in Istanbul, around the world of Kino Vertov / Vertov Film Theatre. Since then, Kino Vertov has closed, and that says something about the wider reality for independent and experimental theatre in Turkey.
These works often survive through devotion, borrowed rooms, personal risk, and the stubborn belief that a piece still deserves to meet people.
So Dünyada has become a homeless work, just like its stranger. It has lost the certainty of a fixed home, and now it has to travel.
After Camden Fringe, we hope to keep taking the production to other cities, festivals and rooms across the world. The plan is simple, almost foolishly simple: to let this Turkish stranger wander until he finds the audiences who recognise him.