A timely play based on the true story of an imprisoned Nobel Laureate. On 3 April 2011, as he was boarding a flight to Taipei, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was arrested at Beijing Airport. Advised merely that his travel "could damage state security", he was escorted to a van by officials, after which he disappeared for eighty-one days. On his release, the government claimed that his imprisonment related to tax evasion. Howard Brenton's play is based on Ai Weiwei's account in Barnaby Martin's book Hanging Man , in which he told the story of that imprisonment - by turns surreal, hilarious, and terrifying. A portrait of the artist in extreme conditions, it is also an affirmation of the centrality of art and freedom of speech in civilised society. #aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei was first performed at Hampstead Theatre, London, in April 2013.