The British Theatre Guide: Interview with Craig and Nadira Murray

Interviews

Craig and Nadira Murray

One of the most unexpected successes of recent months, starting at the Arcola and transferring to the Arts Theatre, was The British Ambassador's Belly Dancer. Rivka talks to them both, Craig and Nadira Murray.

Nadira is known as either the 'belly dancer' or the 'wife of the ex-ambassador to Uzbekistan'. He might be remembered as the outspoken British ambassador to Uzbekistan whose failure to dance to the Foreign Office's accepted tune secured his own professional suicide.

They appear as a happy couple. She is relaxed and rather natural in her responses. He, on the other hand, was initially more measured but gradually relaxed and became more spontaneous. There is a paternal support for her in his overall demeanour. It is clear that, while he looks after her, she looks up to him.

"How good was your English before you met Craig?" I asked Nadira before Craig had the opportunity to settle down. She smiles. "My English wasn't that good. Not good at all." She looks at him affectionately and adds, "We could understand one another though."

First encounter

They met at Safar nightclub in Tashkent. She was working there for just three months in an effort to earn sufficient money to help her two younger brothers get an education and get herself out of Uzbekistan to any European country or the USA. She had an American admirer who she believed would get her out of the depressing reality she lived in. Instead her knight in shining armour took the form of a then 43 year old British Ambassador, Craig Murray. She was just 22 and ambitious.

I asked Craig Murray what a UK ambassador was doing in a nightclub. Apparently it is quite common, according to Craig, for ambassadors to spend time in nightclubs. He explains that "the job is really stressful and a nightclub is a natural place". He adds that ambassadors have "a high-living sort of lifestyle. You deal with senior businessmen and wealthy people; they tend to hang out in these types of places. These tend to be the influential people you are meant to befriend.

Senior diplomats may not talk about going to nightclubs and strip clubs, but they all do it." Craig, on the other hand, "never believed in hiding things."

He reflects on the day he saw Nadira for the first time, one that had been particularly stressful for him. He just wanted to have a few drinks and look at some pretty girls. She stood out in that crowd. "She has tremendous natural charisma." He gave her his card. He did not hear from her. She tried to call him, but could not pass his private secretary. The stressed Ambassador called her to find out why she failed to get in touch. Once communication was established a bond between the two was forged. She was soon to be asked to accompany him as an interpreter when he travelled with a small entourage to a godforsaken village named Kitab, where he went to investigate human rights abuse.

I asked Craig why he needed to take with him a belly dancer rather than an official interpreter on a long official and important journey. After all, Nadira, by her own admission, could hardly speak English at that time.

He explained that going to Kitab was a last minute decision. It is in a region where people speak Tajik and to find an interpreter who can speak Tajik and English is not easy. Nadira could speak Tajik, Uzbek and Russian. She could translate into Russian and his secretary could translate that into English!

It was only sometime later that he asked her to quit work at the nightclub and become his mistress. As befitting a gentleman, he offered to pay for her upkeep. Nadira refused the offer on the grounds that she couldn't be his mistress because she was a virgin. She recalls his response with affection. He respected her wish, yet continued to be generous to her.

Don Quixote or Gary Cooper?

I asked Craig a question he must have been asked many times before, whether it was really wise to expose himself in the manner that he did, not merely by being outspoken against the government of the host country but also to a possible physical danger when he walked in front of his jeep in a village where a section of the population was hostile.

He expressed his passionate interest in human rights and freedom of speech. He believes in setting an example, pointing out that "people in Uzbekistan are afraid of those in authority. Someone has to demonstrate to these people that they should not be afraid."

If things are so bad in Uzbekistan, I wondered why his predecessors kept so quiet.

He explains that they knew about the serious breaches of human rights but didn't really care. "The Foreign Office claim that I was supported in my fight against human rights abuses is unsubstantiated. Today, no work is being done to challenge the human rights abuse in Uzbekistan."

Craig does not regard his outspokenness and his time as ambassador as a failure "because I brought the plight of the people in Central Asia to the world's attention." He also feels that he helped to show Uzbeks that not all the Westerners supported the Karimov regime. "The idea of freedom there is so important."

I wondered if Nadira inspired him to help the Uzbeks. He gives a diplomatic answer: "Nadira is the least political person you'll ever meet." To help her understand him he had her watch the film High Noon with Gary Cooper. Craig sees himself as Gary Cooper in his role as Marshal Will Kane. He points to the important issues raised in the film, where an individual stands alone to fight for justice and principles he believes in.

Craig Murray equates today's War on Terror to McCarthyism in the US. "We will recover and look back on it as the US now does about McCarthyism," he says. "Communism and WOT both inflicted much physical damage on the world."

"Looking back at the end results of your actions - was it worth it? Are you a Don Quixote or Gary Cooper? Would you do it again the same way?" I asked.

He definitely sees himself as Gary Cooper and yes it was worth it. "We know about things now that the public didn't know about before." He feels he is part of that process which blew the whistle on things like torture and abuse of power in the WOT.

Love v Principles?

Just how much influence did Nadira wield over our Cary Cooper of the 21st century? She is quick to distance herself from any claim to glory when it comes to her husband's war on the establishment.

"Craig spoke out before we met. He gave a big political speech before we met." Nadira confirms she didn't influence his actions and adds that, had she known what he was doing, she would have made him stop. She would have made him choose between his activities or her.

"Why would you have stopped him?" I asked. Nadira smiled and explained, "Our ways of helping people are completely different. Mine is more through love and peace and giving money to charity."

I turned to Craig and asked him, "Had Nadira given you the ultimatum to chose between her or your fight for the Uzbeks' human rights, what would you have chosen?" The reply was disappointingly predictable: "I cannot answer this question."

The British Ambassador's Belly Dancer

A belly dancer without professional training in the art of dance proved in her solo performance of The British Ambassador's Belly Dancer that she has what it takes to move seductively and artistically. Yet, she confesses that her performance as a dancer is affected by the gender of the audience in the front rows. "If the men in the audience are in the front row, then I dances more 'energetically'" but if women are conspicuous in the front row then the noted body language make her pull back a bit more and tone down the seductive moves. Naturally she prefers men in the front rows, sensing their desire. "I want them to love me with their eyes".

Nadira came up with the idea for the play in October 2007. "I wanted to give an honest expression of myself" she says. She met Alan Hescott, told him her story and within two weeks he moulded it into a play which was changed and edited by Craig. "It was a joint effort. Craig also made some small changes to make it more true to life." Nadira explains.

"Nadira's story is one of survival and the human spirit as well as feminism," explains Craig. "There is a celebration of sexuality in her dancing." I asked why there wasn't more dancing in the show. Nadira explains that Alan suggested more belly dancing but she wanted to keep it simple believing that more dancing would undermine the message in the story.

Sexual violation

Her play highlights the corrupt system in Uzbekistan, where young women can be subjected to sexual harassment and rape by men placed to protect them, namely the police and Muslim clerics. They demand sexual gratification with a clear note of threat that reporting them will lead to undermining the woman's honour and leave the man believed and with an untarnished reputation.

I asked her about the two incidents of rape she referred to in her play and wondered how a woman can be raped twice and remain a virgin, as implied in her show.

Nadira explains with some embarrassment that the Hajji, the religious Muslim Head-teacher, followed her to the women's toilets where he forced her to have sex with him. "He didn't go inside, he rubbed himself against me, and fortunately he finished quickly."

The second rape incident was by a police officer who made it clear that if she reported him no one would believe her. He was the authority to whom she would need to report a complaint. Nadira's street-wisdom dictated the next move: she quickly offered him oral sex and he accepted without hesitation. It might be hard to fathom the importance of woman's virginity in Muslim countries; but Nadira admits that only now she realises the absurdity in the weight placed on guarding it at all cost.

Pride and ignorance

Her parents both studied drama at the Danchenko Drama School in St Petersburg. They are open minded Muslims. They and her two brothers are proud of her professional achievements in the UK. They know of her solo performance and about her life with Craig.

"But," she adds, "they don't know the specifics (of her past). I don't want them to be shocked about the rapes. They don't know I worked in a nightclub. I used to tell them that I worked in a hotel as a receptionist late at night. Of course, they believed me. I had to lie; they would not have allowed me to work in a nightclub. Now that lots of articles written about me are translated into Uzbek, they asked me if I was a strip dancer and of course I had to deny it. I was never a stripper. A stripper takes off all her cloths. I never did. I talk in the play about spanking because I could never understand how anyone can get pleasure from spanking."

"Yet in the play you say that Craig likes spanking," I reminded her. She explains that in the village of Kitab she wanted to cheer him up and therefore she dressed like a school girl and went along with the spanking game. Craig admits that he was embarrassed by Nadira's reference to his delight in spanking. Yet he believes in freedom of speech and therefore it would be hypocritical to muzzle an unpalatable truth.

Theatre training

Craig never had any aspirations to act. He is writing his first play. It is a political farce, as one might expect. He says that Nadira inspired some of the subplots of the play. It deals with illegal immigrants. The main protagonist is a female cabinet minister and her crooked husband. Craig hopes that it is funny. When I commented that it might be dated, he replied that ideas like buying seats in the House of Lords are very old and yet they don't really date. Nadira interjects by adding that there will be sex is in it too. The play's title is Purer than Pure.

Nadira admits that she would have done anything to get education in London. She went first to the Rose Bruford College. She took a foundation course in European Theatre Arts which, she says, was more academic and very difficult. Although she was then only 24 the rest of the students were 18. She learnt a great deal there. Craig was her rock. She then went to RADA where she studied Shakespeare. Nadira recalls her experience there with youthful enthusiasm.

She is very ambitious to succeed as an actress. Isabella in Measure for Measure is her heroine. "She almost mirrors my life". The dilemma of having to sacrifice her virginity is one Nadira faced on a few occasions. She recalls being a teacher in a school where she wanted her brother to study.

"The principal said that he would accept my brother only if I was his mistress. Of course I rejected that proposal."

She can understand Isabella. Had she been in Uzbekistan and faced with Isabella's plight she would have acted like her. But, she points out, "Isabella was very young; she must have been not yet in her 20s." Now, of course, at the age of 26 Nadira sees things differently.

She admits that she has little experience in acting but "I think my understanding is sharper than the other students my age because of my life experience. It is not my acting that is better but my insight into plays."

Nadira points to Uncle Vanya. When they were studying Yelena Andreyevna some of the students saw her as a selfish woman. They do not understand the emotions of a young beautiful woman married to a man twice her age. Astroff who is young attractive and sexually exciting comes along. She is fascinated and attracted to him. They kiss passionately. It is natural and understandable.

"I totally understand Yelena. This is another little mirror into my life," she says. "There is nothing to tie me to Craig, but he loves me and I am very comfortable with him at present. I told him that one day I will not be with him. I don't want him to have false hopes that we will be together forever. I think honesty is essential."

Her parents love him. He bought them a flat in Tashkent as part of her dowry,. They are very happy there.

Nadira also sees something of herself in Oscar Wilde's Salome. "Salome communicates her beauty and her sexuality through her dance to get what she wants." Nadira likes the idea of the power a woman can have in manipulating men through dance. It is a power she feels she has, wields and enjoys.

Nadira sees something of herself in Regina in Ibsen's Ghosts. "She is a servant who flirts with her lady's son, Osvald, because she wants to get out of her position and go to Paris." However, she admits that she does not feel imprisoned or unhappy. On the contrary, she is very happy doing what she is doing. Unlike Regina, Nadira managed to escape her fate as a belly dancer dependent on other men's mercy in Uzbekistan.

I wondered how she feels living with an older man. "I love it. I don't think I would manage a young man. A man has to be a good lover, father figure, someone to guide me. I learn a lot from older men. All my past relationships were with older men," she admits. "I don't think about the future. I am happy now; when tomorrow comes, I will live tomorrow. On the other hand, when it comes to my career I plan ahead."

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