Pakistan's Oppenheimer: Dr A.Q. Khan

The play Pakistan's Oppenheimer opens in 2004, with Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, delivering a televised confession to nuclear proliferation. It is a moment of profound humiliation for one of the most consequential scientists of the twentieth century. But who is the man behind the confession? The play moves back to 1952 and follows Khan from his traumatic journey through Partition, across Europe to the laboratories of the Netherlands where he acquired the knowledge that would change his country's future - and finally to the moment Pakistan achieved nuclear capability. It is a story of an immigrant's fierce ambition, a love that crossed continents, and an unwavering loyalty to a country still finding its place in the world. At its heart, Pakistan's Oppenheimer asks whether a man can be simultaneously a patriot and a villain, a visionary and a pawn and whether the verdict of history depends entirely on who is doing the judging. A play for our times: urgent, human, and hauntingly familiar.