Sadiq Ali Company: ‘Tell Me’ review – A poignant story of sex, hijinks, and a belly-up in the middle of the 1980s AIDS crisis | Dance

IIn the show’s memo for “Tell Me,” its creator Sadiq Ali says that 2025 was the year he would have been expected to die from AIDS-related complications, if not for advances in medicine. Instead, here he was, muscular and strong, wrapped around a Chinese pole, suspending himself in the air, his belly glistening.

Ali is also thriving as an artist. His latest show, The Chosen Haram, received five-star reviews, and he has just officially launched his own circus/theatre company. This new work, “Tell Me,” follows a woman living with HIV, something that is still stigmatized and misunderstood, especially outside of the LGBTQ+ community. It’s a personal topic for Ali, but he doesn’t put himself at the center. Instead, it’s Phoebe Knight as the protagonist, joined by Ali and Jonah Russell, and along with a clever set made of cube-shaped frames that double as poles and a trapeze to climb and swing from, it depicts a cohesive story and evokes some poignant emotions.

In contrast to today, we are transported back to the soundtrack of the 1980s, to the fever of fear and shame when AIDS became public enemy number one, and friends and family shunned people diagnosed with it. This show was originally presented as an outdoor performance (it premiered at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival last year) but the black box theater allows for a darker atmosphere, both literally and metaphorically.

Friendship, revelry, nightlife and sex are represented by movement across the floor and vertically up the columns, until the characters end up confronting their demons – rather literally – with Ali wearing horns and knee-high PVC moccasin platforms. The first half of the show feels smart and sharp in terms of theatrical choices; Use music, sound, location, text and dance to subtly define what is happening. Once we get down into darker territory with the demonic minotaur creature, it settles down for a while.

“Tell Me” is ultimately not a story of triumph or transcendence, it is a story of love, support and acceptance, with some poignantly intimate moments. It’s also a well-orchestrated piece of theatre, and there’s no doubt there’s more from Ali to come.