Pascal Theatre Company, 12:37, Finborough Theatre

The title of Julia Pascal's new play, 12:37, alludes to the precise time on 22 July 1946 that a massive bomb exploded in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The bomb had been planted by right-wing Zionists and its target was the British HQ in Palestine. 91 people were killed, 46 wounded.

In a parallel plot line, two Jewish brothers from Dublin come across the Irish Sea to combat anti-semitism in the streets of east London, finding common cause with Jewish nationalism in their struggle against British colonialism.

This is how Julia Pascal explain the genesis of 12:37: 'A secret history of how Irish nationalism influenced Jewish nationalists is at the heart of this play. The text is influenced by interviews with men who fought the British in Palestine and also by my own Dublin Jewish family and their conflicted relationships with Israel.'

The play asks complex and immensely topical questions around Jewish violence, homeland and national identity.

Julia Pascal's prolific work as both playwright and director is diverse and multinational, but shows a particular interest in the condition of women, for example her 2019 Blueprint Medea, inspired by Kurdish women soldiers fighting for national identity, and Jewish themes, for example, the Tricycle Theatre commission Crossing Jerusalem and The Holocaust Trilogy, which includes her adaption of Solomon Anski’s The Dybbuk.

The Pascal Theatre Company was set up in 1983 to produce and promote new writing.