Unsuitable Playwrights...

By Dominic Rai

Dominic Rai reports on a change in the cultural landscape - British Asian playwrights do it for themselves!

British Asian playwrights are tackling tough issues with humour and in doing so making theatre relevant for a young multicultural audience. What place do they have in changing the cultural landscape of Britain?

They are not only winning awards but finding opportunities in film, radio and TV. They are also bringing in new audiences - in many cases young people who have never set foot inside a theatre before. Their impact comes from interesting stories and quality writing, bringing fresh characters to the stage.

Current productions include Unsuitable Girls by Dolly Dhingra, Ash Kotak's Hijra, Bettina Gracias' Singh Tangos and Sanctuary by Tanika Gupta.

Unsuitable Girls featuring Chumpa, a fast-talking career girl, is in its third production in just two years.

Hijra, Ash Kotak's first play takes a look at a number of taboo subjects including homosexuality. It features Nils, a young man who shuns his family's marriage plans for himself and takes up with a young man from Bombay. The play started life in the small studio theatre the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, where it sometimes gained more audiences than the play being staged in the theatre's main house. It is now on at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds in a second production.

Opening this April is Kali Theatre Company's Singh Tangos by Bettina Gracias. This will be staged at the Derby Playhouse before going on a national tour.

Tanika Gupta has emerged as an important playwright in recent years. A former writer in residence at the National, she won the John Whiting Award for The Waiting Room in 2000. Her new play, Sanctuary, can be seen at the Loft at the National Theatre in July. This involves a gardener called Kabir in a complex drama of morality and conscience set in a London churchyard.

The National Theatre has also commissioned Ash Kotak, Maya Chowdhury and Ray Grewal, who won last year's Meyer Whitworth Award for My Dad's Cornershop.

Jack Bradley, literary manager of the National, told me: 'The stories are fresher and less hackneyed than work which has traditionally dominated the theatre…..'

Shan Khan was the first Scot to have a play staged by the main Edinburgh Festival in the past 25 years. Office, his first play which won last year's Verity Bargate Award, is a slice of life drama set in London's King's Cross. Shan has also written Freeview, a screenplay set on a Scottish housing estate.

Other voices include Parv Bancil, currently writing a play for the Royal Court entitled, The Apparition of the Black Dogs, and Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti. Her first play Shameless (Behsharam) was performed last autumn at London's Soho Theatre and at the Birmingham Rep. Shameless was developed under a writer's attachment scheme at the Rep and takes an original, disturbing and often hilarious look at British Asian extended families.

The writer and actress Meera Syal has written the book for Andrew Lloyd-Webber's Bombay Dreams, opening at the Apollo Theatre in London's West End this June. The show will involve a cast of young British Asian newcomers. The music is by the brilliant Bollywood composer, A R Rahman. Bombay Dreams will specifically target young multicultural audiences.

Young British Asians now have the chance to see stories of relevance to their lives on the stage, and are being targeted by theatres with dwindling audiences. Now is the time for new writers to take advantage of the current spotlight, to tell their fascinating stories and to change the face of British theatre for ever.

• Hijra at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Courtyard Theatre, Leeds, until March 9
• Unsuitable Girls, Haymarket Studio Theatre, Leicester, March 1-16, followed by national tour
• Singh Tangos, Derby Playhouse Studio, Derby, April 25-27, followed by national tour
• Bombay Dreams, Apollo Theatre, London, from June 19
• Sanctuary, National Theatre Loft, London, July 25 to August 10

Dominic Rai, Artistic Director, Mán Melá Theatre Company, is writing Chilli in Your Eyes, a book about the development of British Asian theatre and writing. He is currently developing stories not for texting with Eastside Arts Young Writers and Performers Group. Details of current Asian work is regularly posted on AsianGigs.com.

Mán Melá Theatre Company, PO Box 24987, London SE23 3XS
T: 07966 215090
E: man-mela@ dircon.co.uk
W: www.manmela.org.uk