Haider once put on a play called something like Checkmate, about a dictatorial Chinese emperor from the olden days. He gave a poster to an ageing theatre worker and asked him to put it up outside. Later the security services came to arrest him and investigate the whole production. That he wasn’t taken in handcuffs is maybe testament to his fame and popularity as an actor here.

It turned out the old man’s sight was fading badly and he’d inadvertently (presumably) put the play bill over a portrait of Saddam. The other actors and the Minstry of Culture all tried to help Haider and he was released after a day, having convinced the authorities that neither the play nor the positioning of the poster was intended as a challenge to Saddam.

Plays had to be licensed. All drama had to be a celebration of the regime, Fadhil says. You could say you were against the war in your work but not that you were against the regime. There were no specific things that were symbols of opposition, no animals or figures that were widely understood as representing Saddam in theatre or literature – you would be killed – but there would be things in the background that the lights would linger over.

Fadhil showed us round the National Theatre, the huge stage in the main auditorium, the echoing backstage, talked about the plays and operas that used to be held here. The theatre was looted after the war. Even props were stolen, never mind valuables like the lights. Fadhil excused himself to go and collect his Ministry of Culture salary from upstairs but came back empty handed.

He was paid by the Ministry of Culture before the war as well. Haider and some of the others were freelance or private. Plays are still going on but there is little of any quality, Fadhil says. There’s soon to be a programme of plays about Al-Sadr, an important Shia figure killed by Saddam, so the front of the National is covered with pictures of him. There was a week-long festival of children’s theatre and another of Iraqi theatre but he’s not seen any new work of real coherence and power. People are still too bewildered, he says.

Haider is working on a project to make a play from a book called “Death of a Violet” (I think – Fadhil wasn’t quite sure of the title in English) by an Italian writer called something like Jacoberti. It’s about a house which is left standing alone after bombing which destroys all the surrounding buildings. The Generals want to know how this one withstood the demolition and the play is about their attempts to get in and to destroy the family inside. Haider is translating and adapting it to fit the Iraqi situation. He hopes to have an invitation to perform the play at a Moroccan theatre festival.

Things are uncertain now for the theatre, Fadhil says. It’s not clear whether the ministry will go on supporting actors. “We need the theatre, we need drama, to preserve our ancient culture and also to move forward, to express and debate democracy and freedom and the future. It is important because the problem is with the Iraqi people. It is difficult for people to feel they have any control over the country and their lives so they don’t take responsibility. Of course the problem is with the Americans as well – they came here and destroyed and they did not understand the culture or anything. They got rid of Saddam but they haven’t done anything.”

He went north to the Kurdish zone to present a film about historical sites. When he asked a question about northern Iraq, the interviewee stopped him. “He told me this is Kurdistan, not northern Iraq. I found it really sad.” We talked for a while about how oppression turns people towards nationalistic, religious and fundamentalist movements.

But today’s play wasn’t about politics. They created the stage out of a leafy mat, tables making way for a tree and a fountain, branches concealing the hall’s usual function as a lecture room in a hospital. Kids and families crept in uncertainly. A woman in an abaya, her husband in a wool hat, a toddler in dungarees between them, huddled in the very middle of the block of chairs, as weighed down as human beings could look. And, about halfway through, they started to laugh, and it rocked them and it shook them and it made the sun shine on them instead of just dazzling their eyes.

There are some men who want to cut down the tree and some people who protect it. There’s a man who gets turned into a cockerel and can only crow; another who turns into a giant yellow monkey. One of the smallest boys burst into tears, ran away and watched the rest of the show just peeping out from behind a chair with encouraging cuddles. And there’s Mohammed, about three and a half, maybe four, feet of comic wizardry. The kids love him because he’s their height.

The actors have been performing all over Baghdad for about the last month, supported by Premiere Urgence, a French NGO. Fadhil talks about a school for autistic kids where they performed the other play. He’s a chef, trying to keep control over two mischievous cats who keep hiding the apples. The children, when they arrive, are introverted and isolated. He says he asked one of them if he knew where the cats had hidden the apples. “And he looked at me and said ‘I c-can’t tell you. The cats are my friends.’ He was relating to them. It was great.”

In between a US military base and the Turkish embassy there’s a building belonging to the city council, which an Iraqi organisation called Childhood Voice has filled with kids, computers, musical instruments, art materials and teachers. There’s a kitchen, a woodwork room, a sewing and knitting workshop, a ping pong hall, a theatre and outdoor volleyball and basketball court, football pitch and a karate training space.

Odai pointed in one direction: “This area is reasonably wealthy. They are not rich people but they are OK. Over here they are very poor. You can tell where the children are from by their clothes.” They all mix together in the youth centre. Apparently it’s unusual, though the opportunity is there, for the girls to choose to do woodwork or the boys to do cooking.

Childhood Voice runs the Seasons Art School as well, a smaller facility which takes more handicapped kids, running two shifts a day, morning and afternoon, because that’s how the schools are running now. A lot of the kids wouldn’t have access to computers and musical instruments if it weren’t for the centres but, maybe more importantly, there’s a psychologist available to help with trauma.

It was started by a group of Iraqi people in August with financial support from Unicef and Norwegian Church Aid. The building that houses the youth centre is owned by the interim city council. It was damaged in war so it had to be rehabilitated for the project. Part of the condition of using the building was that it should have a manager from the council, but in March the operation will be handed over to Childhood Voice.

Odai says the location, between the base and the embassy, is a safety concern which is exacerbated by US soldiers coming into the centre. They have asked them not to, for the sake of children, because they are a target, but they keep doing it.

On the way we passed what sounded like a wedding, the drums, the bugle, the hooting, the shots in the air. Weddings don’t happen on Wednesday mornings. A translator working with US military was killed about 3 days ago. If the dead person was never married, they’re dressed up as if for a wedding and taken to their funeral with a procession so they can be a bride or groom in the next life.