Waleed
Akhtar

Bio

Waleed Akhtar is a writer and actor. His debut play Kabul Goes Pop: Music Television Afghanistan (2022) at Brixton House, was inspired by the true story of Afghanistan’s first youth music TV programme. Exploring a world following the US invasion of Afghanistan the play was set to a soundtrack of early noughties’ pop. It’s centred around two young friends, Farook and Samia, as they run a live daily broadcast, against the backdrop of a changing political landscape.

He shortly followed this with The P Word at the Bush Theatre, a story of two gay Pakistani men, Zafar, an asylum seeker in the UK fleeing homophobic persecution, and Bilal (or Billy as he prefers) a Londoner, whose worlds collide. The play won the Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre at the 2023 Olivier Awards.

He recently released his original audio play Mrs. Bibi on Audible.

Event

Transcript

Shiroma 0:00

Announcer, welcome to The Next Act: British South Asian Playwrights, a new series focusing on the voices shaping the future of British South Asian theatre. Each episode centers on a conversation with a single playwright examining their creative processes and the political, personal and artistic forces that drive and inform their work, bringing about lively, thought provoking dialogs that explore the zeitgeist in this theatre landscape. I'm Shiroma Silva. I'm a film director, a radio producer and broadcast journalist. With me is Rukhsana Ahmad.

Rukhsana 0:37

I'm a writer, playwright and translator. I'm also the founder of Kali Theatre Company and Sadaa.

Shiroma 0:43

and Jaswinder Blackwell Pal.

Jaswinder 0:46

I'm a lecturer in Theatre and Performance Studies at Queen Mary University of London.

Shiroma 0:54

Today, we're joined by Waleed Akhtar, a writer and actor. His debut play, Kabul Goes Pop! Music Television Afghanistan, of 2022 at Brixton House, was inspired by the true story of Afghanistan's first Youth Music TV program, exploring a world following the American invasion of Afghanistan. The play was set to a soundtrack of early noughties pop. It centered around two young friends, Farook and Samia as they run a live daily broadcast against the backdrop of a changing political landscape. He shortly followed this with The P Word at the Bush Theatre, a story of two gay Pakistani men, Zafar, an asylum seeker in the UK fleeing homophobic persecution, and Bilal, or Billy, as he prefers, a Londoner whose worlds collide. The play won the Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre at the 2023 Olivier Awards, and he recently released his original audio play Mrs. Bibi on Audible.

Thank you so much, Waleed, for coming in. Let's dive straight in there. Shall we?

Waleed 1:59

Let's do it.

Shiroma 2:00

Tell me, what was your route into playwriting? How did you how did you get started? How did it all happen?

Waleed 2:05

Well, I was an actor first, and when I was first acting, I was writing a bit and got a little bit of success, gotten a few courses and things like that. And my agent at the time was like, if you're an actor who writes, you look desperate. So I kind of put it on the back burner, but then I really started to miss it. And it was around 2020 that I decided to become more of a maker, because I think as an actor, you don't always have that autonomy. And then COVID happened. So the only thing that I could really do to keep myself active was write. And I wrote Kabul Goes Pop, and then quite quickly, wrote The P Word after that, just to prove to myself I could write another play. And then they went on, and that's where it all kind of took off.

Jaswinder 2:46

And what are some of your influences? I'm thinking both in terms of dramatic influences, other writers, directors that might have inspired you, but also more broadly, what kind of influences you're writing, what goes into you thinking of the story?

Waleed 3:00

I didn't grow up going and watching a lot of theatre, so I remember debbie tucker green was a huge influence, reading Dirty Butterfly for the first time and picking up a text where it's like, oh, I recognize these voices. This sounds like London. And being really engaged by that. I grew up watching a lot, a lot of TV, probably raised by the TV a lot of film and influence wise, it's everything. I think as a writer, you can't escape the good plays the bad plays, they all kind of feed in everything around you. I think my plays in particular, kind of blend high brow and low brow references, and so I'm just as at home watching endless Tiktok as I am sort of watching something else, and it all feeds into my work.

Shiroma 3:42

Let's talk about your work. Then let's talk about The P Word, a play about sexuality, it's about immigration, it's about isolation from communities. How did you come up with those ideas? What informed you?

Waleed 3:57

So I think it was around 2018 there was a video that went viral of a young woman standing up on a plane in Sweden and stopping an Afghan refugee from being deported. And I remember that stayed in my head, and I was turning it over again and again, and I thought, wouldn't that be an interesting ending to a rom com? If you know, you had that old trope of stopping a plane for the person you love because they're going away. And then I thought, what if that person you loved was someone who you know is being deported? And then it was like, Oh, what if it was the same sex? Then I was like, what if you were Muslim and you had to stand up on a plane full of other Muslims and declare that you're homosexual and the person you love is being deported? So I sort of came up with the ending first, and then it was like, the rest of the story emerged, and what I've learned subsequently is that every play is born in a different way, but this one came a little bit more fully formed, whereas the play that I've have on Audible at the moment, Mrs. Bibi, I didn't find until the third draft, so as I'm writing more, that's what I'm learning as well. Everything comes to you in a different way. But I was lucky with The P Word, that I had a really strong idea of what that ending would look like.

Shiroma 5:03

That's unusual, isn't it, or maybe not, to have the ending first?

Waleed 5:07

Yeah, that was unusual. But I have lots of ideas, like, I'm constantly like this idea, that idea, and what I do is I leave them alone. And if I become preoccupied with something, if I keep returning to it, if I'm always thinking about it and it's fleshing itself out, then I sort of know that's something I really want to pursue. And so, yes, it lives in my head, and I think about it a lot, and maybe that is the thing that you don't see and doesn't feel like work, but is, is the thinking about something and how much time it sort of lives in your head, and the time away from an idea is just as important as the sitting and writing.

Jaswinder 5:41

Yeah, it needs time to kind of sink in, and for those ideas to kind of develop and deepen. It's interesting because one of the things we've been asking some of the writers on this podcast is, where do they start with the play? Do they start from character, from story? It sounds like The P Word started with a scene, almost like a complete scene that came to you. Has that process replicated with other plays? Or have you started from a different point with some of your other projects?

Waleed 6:04

I think even though I had that end scene, character then becomes really important to me, because then I think Billy sort of arrived in my head as, like, this kind of really problematic gay character who I've seen around the scene and stuff. And so I always go back to character, I think, and that becomes really important to me. And I think that's probably the common thread of all of my plays. And with Kabul Goes Pop, because it was inspired by a true story, it was like reading about that story and then like informing that with the characters. So yeah, even if I get an idea of something, then I always root it back to character.

Jaswinder 6:38

So sticking with The P Word, and then thinking about character that play is quite interesting, if it stages this relationship between a British Pakistani man and then a recently arrived Pakistani asylum seeker. I feel like that story and that kind of collision between an established diasporic community and then kind of new arrivals and people navigating the asylum system today, we don't usually see those characters kind of meeting on stage. Could you say a little bit more about how you approached that?

Waleed 7:08

Yeah, it was just what I was seeing in the world around me. I think I'm really interested by the kind of new wave of immigration from the subcontinent and the reaction of second generation people towards that, and around me, I saw a lot of people saying, Oh, I'd never date. And I don't use the term, but like, a freshie, a fresh off the boat. And I was like, why is that? And it's an accent thing, or it's like, oh, we wouldn't like gel on a on a certain level, they just wouldn't get me. But I think it's rooted in colonialism. We've taken on the views and opinions of the colonizers. And, like, actually, if a white person said that, it would be out and out rightly racist, but we haven't interrogated that within our own community. So I sort of wanted to explore that through those characters. But also it was reflecting something I was seeing around me and an attitude. But also, who are these people that are coming over as well? A lot of them now are very middle class and, you know, coming for blue collar jobs and the rest of it, it's white collar one of the two. Yeah. So I was interested by that.

Shiroma 8:07

That's white collar jobs. I mean, and in a way, at a higher level, you could even say that that's reflected in some of our political leaders, our decision makers, and how they might look at immigrants who are new in a way where their own families were not that long ago.

Waleed 8:26

Yeah, I think that's so true. And in the actual production of The P Word as well, right at the end, we had like Priti Patel, who was, I think the Home Secretary changed during the course of the run, but we used her voice as people were coming out of the auditorium because I think she just passed some legislation which made it easier to deport people back to Pakistan. And I am really interested in the kind of last government we had, and those brown faces that were legitimizing a lot of views that were harmful to our communities.

Rukhsana 8:56

I'm going to ask you about your writing in a little bit more detail. What is the most essential part of your writing? That is the secret part that really informs your imagination really?

Waleed 9:08

I don't know if it's secret, because I chat about everything all the time, so I've probably got no secrets left. Everything's out there. I think the thing that clicked for me as a writer was when I stopped writing, trying to get a play on and thinking, Oh, this would be great, maybe an institution would put this on, or this might capture the zeitgeist. It's when I sort of started thinking about, what do I want to say? What would I love to see? And that's where I write from, and that changed a lot for me. And also, when I'm having fun on the page, and sometimes I'll be writing, I'll be like, you couldn't possibly do that. And I'm like, that's the thing I must do. So there's that. And more recently as well, it's allowing myself to take wrong turns. I was listening to a podcast with Salman Rushdie, who talks about like, writing and taking wrong turns and then coming back from that, and you've sort of learned something. And so sometimes it's that, it's like following your instinct. And that might not be right, but that's what rewriting is for and also challenging myself as a writer as well. I think you can't be afraid to fail and tackle something big or tackle something in a new way, and I'm constantly trying to do that as well.

Rukhsana 10:14

And what do you think this really important veracity, the truth to reality? Is that important in writing or the emotional truth of your experience?

Waleed 10:22

It's really interesting because there's also that thing about lived experience, and some of the characters I don't have that access to. So I think it is sort of tapping into that universal truth, or that truth of emotion is really important. And like being South Asian as well, I think it's freeing yourself from the burden of trying to represent everything. And I try to be very specific. So The P Word, like was very much specific about a Pakistani experience, and, you know, with Pakistani references, but then, in a way that struck a universal chord. Within specificity, you find universality, I sort of believe as well.

Shiroma 10:59

You talk about truth and veracity, and what about your own truth and your own background? How does that all play into the writing? So The P Word, obviously, one of the themes was about the longing for traditional cultures, and on the other hand, there was a rejection of of that as well. That interplay was there.

Waleed 11:21

Yeah, I think in my early 20s, I remember working in designers shops and stuff, and people would come in and be like, Oh, where are you from? And they'd be like, Oh, let me try and guess and guess lots of different countries, and you'd sort of get on a boost. And when I interrogated that was like, But why? Like, that means absolutely nothing. But when you sort of told them you were Pakistani, they were kind of disappointed, and that fed into Billy a little bit. So that was a bit of my own experience.

Shiroma 11:47

It's really about your own stories, your own authenticities, and how they play out in your writing and in The P Word, one theme that one could pick up on is this interplay between the rejection and the embracement of traditional cultural values?

Waleed 12:04

Yeah, I think for me, it was a journey with my own culture. I think it's about not junking everything. So there are things that we need to discuss within our communities, and I was trying to do that through the play such as homophobia and misogyny. And how do you do that in a way that doesn't embolden the right, but we get to have a conversation within our community, and also, like holding on to the good bits. So that's what's really interesting to me, is we're kind of like second generation or third generation kids. Is like, how do we take the great bits of our culture and also, like, talk about the bits that aren't so great? And it's sort of mashing that together. Also, a lot of my experience in there and understanding of myself. I was talking to a friend of mine, who's a brilliant dramaturg, and I was like, Oh, what was it that clicked with me as a writer in 2020 and I think I mentioned before that one of that was like, I stopped writing for other people, but also I started therapy. And I think that was really important. I think understanding yourself really informs your writing as well. It gives you just a better perspective. And there's definitely parts of that play I wouldn't have written had I not interrogated myself through therapy and like just my own self discovery. And also, I don't think I would have been brave enough to have written this play, maybe before then as well. I remember the lead up to it, there were moments I was like, oh, what's the reception of this going to be? I'm going to be a very visible queer Muslim man at the end of this process, in a way that I haven't been before. And it was also the fact that we were tackling that horrible legislation and the bravery of the people who'd been through that system that really, like powered me through. So, yeah, it all feeds into one another.

Shiroma 13:45

So it's interesting. Would you say that having therapy, therefore marked a change in that was a vote in your writing really as well?

Waleed 13:53

Yeah, I think all writers are really self analytical, but I think with just yourself, you can only see so far. So it was really useful having those other conversations and putting things into context, and giving me the strength to essentially write a play where I was like, Oh, I'm not writing this for my mum, or like, I'm writing this because I want to write it again. It's coming back to like, what do I want to say? And also, I think about, had I, like, written a play about being queer, Muslim, Pakistani at the beginning of my career, what that would have looked like, as opposed to what I wrote and what I'm very happy with, and also who would have been there 10 years ago to receive it. Actually, all of my plays have been programmed by artistic directors of color, Black artistic directors, actually, and I find that really interesting. And had this play and it had it been a different world. Would someone have read it straight away and got it in the way that Lynette at the Bush did? I don't think so.

Shiroma 14:48

So that's given you license, in a way, to be brave?

Waleed 14:51

Yeah, to be brave, or just to not have to over explain my stories, or just know that people are going to kind of get it feel like maybe some of the plays of the past I've had to really explain things, or have been writing for specifically a white audience and being like, Oh, we want to chuck a lens onto this community, whereas I hopefully am writing and saying writing as a British Pakistani for others South Asians or other queer people without necessarily kind of being like, Oh, it's a white lens.

Rukhsana 15:17

So it's really about finding your voice, isn't it? You have found your voice in a sense?

Waleed 15:22

I hope so. But also, I think it's a continual thing as well. We're always stepping into it and continuing that journey to authenticity, and as we move and grow, I think it's constant.

Rukhsana 15:34

And do you find that your characters will surprise you sometimes by running away with it?

Waleed 15:38

Yeah, I mean Billy in particular, I really loved the fact that I got to write someone who, like, is, quote, unquote, like, hideous, like, really problematic, but like, we go on a journey with him. And also, like, I'm really into characters maybe that aren't immediately likable. I think that's really important as well. But I think it was going back to that thing of like, what's fun on the page. So when you chuck two people in together and you're like, Oh, I couldn't possibly this scene wouldn't work, or that seems kind of interesting, and then it's like, just do it and see what comes out of it. With Kabul Goes Pop, I was originally writing it as a one person show, and I was having no joy in writing it. I think I labeled on that version for a long time, and then I decided to make it a two hander and have her present. And when I did, I wrote it within, like, a couple of weeks.

Jaswinder 16:30

While we're on the subject of your kind of influences in the writing process. I wondered if your background as an actor inspired your writing at all, because you talked about kind of character being so important to you. And so I wonder if your training as an actor feeds into the way that you write, in the way that you approach characters on the page.

Waleed 16:47

Yeah, 100% I think, having been trained as an actor and working as an actor, I play every character in my head, so I'm there like improvising, and sometimes when we do readings of the plays, it's not super useful to me, because I've read them out loud or acted them out in my head. And oftentimes people are like, are you going to be in this play or whatever? Like the last one I wrote Mrs. Bibi. I was like, Well, I played Mrs. Bibi. So unless I get to be the 50 year old woman in the in the play, I don't want to do it. But yeah, no, I get to have fun. And I think a lot of actors are good at this. Is dialogue.

Jaswinder 17:23

I was going to ask, do you think it helps you specifically with dialogue, because the dialogue feels very kind of real and alive in your plays, and I'd imagine that approaching it with a kind of actor's mindset helps you bring those words to life.

Waleed 17:35

Yeah, definitely. I think actors have a real good ear for dialogue. And also what it's meant is that I've read a lot of plays. You read good plays, bad plays. I've worked a lot in new writing, and so I've been involved in those processes. And it also meant that I was really ready to be in a rehearsal room as a writer. And I sometimes feel, for you know, first time writers going into that process as they might not always know what's needed at them. And also, like, there's a moment where it's really useful for the writer to go away, and it'd be like, this is your production to some degree now, and you need to kind of get on with it. So that was definitely with Kabul, where it was like, oh, okay, I feel like my presence here as a writer is no longer needed. They need to just own this show. So I left, like, round week three.

Shiroma 18:20

You mentioned that it started off as a one hander and then developed into two and then took off. I mean, tell us a little bit more about kind of that process. I mean, it's full of iconography from the 2000s or some music there, and huge number of political events, global political events that were were happening. So how did that all congeal, come together and then suddenly happen, as it were.

Waleed 18:44

I think a lot of it is my own preoccupations and my own like interests. Growing up, I used to love watching, like, B4U music and those kind of Bollywood pop shows. And I think I wanted to be a TV presenter. So it was my ode to that childhood dream. I'm obsessed with music, so I used to geek out about producers and things like that. And I think I kind of stole that idea a little bit from American Psycho where he has chapters on Whitney Houston, and he goes really deep into the music. So that's why I wanted those monologues where they kind of discuss Britney and that sort of stuff. And at the same time, really interested in global politics. I was like, Why can't you chuck those two things in together and see what it does? And weirdly, I wrote it. I'd finished writing it in 2020 so this was before the free Britney movement, and before America left Afghanistan. And then by 2021 they were like, the biggest stories. And then everybody wanted to read the play, and it had been sitting in their inboxes for ages, and it was like, and it was like, well, and so actually sort of became a response to those events, rather than a precursor. But that, to me, also says something about the nature of British theatre, that actually we could be faster in responding to events. I feel like the way that things are programmed isn't, yeah, isn't always useful. And sometimes I feel like the theatre sort of waits for a conversation to happen elsewhere.

Jaswinder 20:05

Rather than being the place where it begins?

Waleed 20:07

Yeah. So I was sort of with The P Word, I was having some of those conversations before they'd reached the mainstream, so I was a little worried about, like, oh, how are people gonna, like, cotton on to some of this stuff. And there were some of the reactions that some of the race politics really went over people's heads, and you've just got to allow for that.

Shiroma 20:27

But isn't that, in a way, the job of good theatre as well to tap into those conversations that are happening in the sideline and make them mainstream?

Waleed 20:35

Yeah. I think what I'm sort of alluding to is that I feel like sometimes theatre waits for those conversations to have happened, to have reached the mainstream, and then reacts to that, I think of the Black Lives Matter movement, and that was going on for a long time, and it was then in that summer, and then we saw a wave of programming. It was like, but actually a lot of this work was there before. A lot of these writers were working before, and you weren't tapping into that. And it took this massive global moment, and then you become aware of it.

Jaswinder 21:01

Do you think there's a kind of timidity within British theatre?

Waleed 21:04

I think so. I think it's like, what will audiences accept and understand at a certain level. But I think new writing venues like The Bush have been really great, and you can see from their record, and I've been really proud to be a part of that tenure there, because I think they've done some really interesting work.

Jaswinder 21:21

I wanted to change track a little bit to ask you a bit about form in your writing process. So both Kabul Goes Pop and The P Word are largely two handers, and they both also use a lot of direct audience address. And it kind of struck me that both the plays were engaging with those kind of particularities of form. Is there a reason why you were drawn to writing both plays in that kind of style or with that kind of approach?

Waleed 21:45

Well, I love a two hander. There was a play called Yard Girl that I absolutely loved, and so maybe it was slightly influenced a bit by that, with The P Word. I knew I wanted it to sort of feel like these were two separate people and start with those monologs. And then I was thinking about that form breaking down. And when I wrote the first draft, it didn't sort of work with them immediately being in, like scenes together. So I had to kind of slowly, like disintegrate that kind of audience address. And then by the end of the play there, there is just two actors in the space in real time. Kabul, because it was a memory play and it was jumping all over the place, it became useful for that direct address. I think it is really just led by the story. And there's something about that, talking to the audience, which feels very theatrical and that you can only do in the theatre. And I'm here for embracing that, because it is like, otherwise, why not just write for a different medium? And I do love a bit of theatricality, and I think that is the one thing that theatre can do, is like, really communicate with an audience in a way that no other medium can.

Rukhsana 22:52

I think that's very interesting. But I also wanted to ask you about your you know, images and metaphors that come to you, that emerge in your plays, that you use as a central operating image in the play, which kind of become the heartbeat of the play.

Waleed 23:07

So with The P Word, it was definitely that rom com ending that was something that I was holding onto and then kind of informed the rest of the play, because you feel like you're going to get this traditional rom com but then also was really interested in undercutting that, and then what that looked like at the end, because I wanted this happy ending. We'd all been through COVID, and I'm older now, and I just want everyone to be in love and be happy. And had you caught me in my early 20s, I'd been like, No, I want an unhappy ending. Want it to be unsatisfying and unfinished. But now, yeah, everyone's in love all the time, but I knew that it wasn't true to what was going on in the world, so it was really important that we undercut that. And we kind of found that ending through workshopping and getting it on its feet. And that's always something to remember as well, that as much as you're the writer alone, sort of dictating these things. Once you're in a room with people, it sort of changes as well. And you find a lot on its feet. And when you get like gorgeous actors and a director in the space as well, it really does feel like a collaboration.

Rukhsana 24:13

Is there a symbol or a metaphor that you use that that's really important?

Waleed 24:18

I think it really depends on the plate. I think for Kabul Goes Pop, it became that Britney Spears song, which, when we first hear it feels like in a very different context, and then it takes on a very different meaning by the end. I think that for me was just reading the lyrics and really paying attention to them through the years and being like, actually, there's a real dark edge to this song as well. That sort of became the metaphor for that play.

Shiroma 24:44

You mentioned that you have read a lot of plays, good plays, mediocre plays, not such good things in your mind, what makes a good play?

Waleed 24:53

I think it goes back to character I would, I now, subsequently have read lots of plays for competitions and things like that, and you can often see someone who has real great craft and they're really competent at writing a play, but what it's missing is that heart or that character. And I would rather take a scrappy play, but see someone I've never seen on stage before, or engage with something that has a bit of heart, rather than something just be clinical and really well executed. So that's just a personal preference for me. But also, I've been thinking a lot about things that are outside of my own experience. Art that I engage with doesn't necessarily have to come from my own community, so maybe it's sort of tapping into some of those universal things as well. Or maybe it's just because we're people of color, we're so used to seeing ourselves in other people as well that we can engage with things in a different way.

Shiroma 25:45

And on that personal perspective. How much would you say that your politics, though, plays into your writing? Obviously, The P Word you know, was very much about the asylum system and the and the harsh realities of that for some people.

Waleed 26:04

Massively, I would say my politics play into my work. I can't escape it, in a way. I think that's one of the things of being a person of color when you're writing. I don't think you can be politically neutral if you are a person of color, because it's always read on you regardless. And I sort of write a little bit with the injustices of the world, and thinking about that, and thinking about these questions that we don't always get to address, or what are the conversations so even in a small way, like Mrs. Bibi is about representation and what that means, and what it means to be a woman of color who you know isn't afforded the same opportunities as like her white counterparts. It's like difficult for female actors over the age of 50, even harder if you're a female of color. So yeah, so constantly thinking about those questions, and that's feeding into my work and my political points of view.

Shiroma 26:57

And let's talk about Kabul Goes Pop, because that's an interesting collision, even of many themes. There's feminism and the fight, there's imperialism, and this is all against the backdrop of a society of some extremism. How do they collaborate? How do they collude? How do they clash?

Waleed 27:19

Yeah, yeah. I think I wanted to tap into the optimism of youth. So there was this, like, particular moment when the Americans came in and, you know, people thought Afghanistan could change into a different shape, or these young people did, at least. And I think that feeling is sort of universal when you're that age and you think, Oh yeah, I can take on the world, and I can change everything, and then all the other elements that sort of come into play, and they're heightened in Afghanistan, but they exist outside of that as well. So, you know, the patriarchy exists everywhere, but it's just in a different form there. And so I sort of wanted to investigate that and do that through the lens of just young people.

Jaswinder 28:01

I wonder what was your experience of that period in history, like yourself, and how did that inform your writing of the play? You know, obviously around the time that this story is set, we're seeing the so called War on Terror. We're seeing a global rise of Islamophobia, but also kind of mass protests and movements against that so did that kind of broader backdrop or your experience of that time inform your writing of the play?

Waleed 28:25

It definitely did. I remember people coming in to audition for it being like, Oh, you must have done so much research. I'm like...

Jaswinder 28:33

I was alive.

Waleed 28:34

Yeah, basically. And we were like, trying to cast real 21 year olds who who came in saying, N, Y, N, C, S, or something. Like they couldn't say, they didn't know NSYNC. And I was like, ah, mind blown. So a lot of it was easy to access in terms of the music, because it's some of the stuff I'd grown up with. But yeah, that all informed it, and it also, like, the responsibility. Because, you know, there was that speech when the Americans did leave about, like, we didn't come there to liberate the country. It was for our own, like, security. But that wasn't the pretext under which they went and maybe, like, because I was into that kind of American music and all that sort of stuff. It's sort of marrying the two things together about how that is used as a tool and what America means.

Jaswinder 29:17

The kind of cultural imperialism alongside the military imperialism, and the lie that being sold to people.

Waleed 29:23

Yeah, and how actually people buy into it. And, you know, the idea that America is a place that a lot of people want to go to, whereas here in Britain, we often think, Oh, they're all trying to come here, and it's like, no, they're not. And, and that is because of the culture and how people identify with it and the Americanization of the world. So I was interested by that, and because it was being sort of put on in Britain, sort of looking at that responsibility we have as well.

Shiroma 29:49

I mean, in a way, the backdrop to that represented a very, very extremist situation, didn't it? I mean, in a way where these huge colliding forces really came to bear. And erupted essentially. I mean, did that then spur on your writing as well, and through the lens of these vibrant young people who were trying to make such a change in such a really impossible situation?

Waleed 30:13

Yeah, I think because the Taliban have come back into power now. So at that moment, it wasn't even the most extreme version of Afghanistan.

Shiroma 30:22

But up til then.

Waleed 30:23

Yeah, but what I mean is, like, it really speaks to what do we accept for freedom for other countries? So, you know, like, those women were 'liberated', but actually that, as we know, wasn't the real reason they were there. There was no, you know, infrastructure for lasting change. And so hopefully that explores all of that. Because I think, yeah, like, we were sort of sold a lie, and, like, the pretext of that as well, and it was sort of born out in these young people. But also just, you know, the costs for Samia in that play to just even be on in front of a screen is much higher than the male counterpart. And it is always like that. I was interested in why we don't hear as much about the women, because they often get left behind, or they get killed, or they don't get out and I wanted to explore that practically through the play as well. That's why she's sort of a kind of ghost or a cipher of his, because he has the guilt, and he didn't have that understanding that actually what she was doing was far braver than what he ever did. And so I was hoping, through that form and through that I was getting to explore why we don't hear from the women, and why don't we get their stories firsthand as well. And it was also, while I was doing research for the play, I could find out about a lot about him, the real him, but there was not very much on her.

Jaswinder 31:40

And so how did you approach writing her character then, given the kind of lack of access to documentation and material about her life?

Waleed 31:47

Well, it became something I explored. So it's almost like he'd wished he'd asked her more, because when someone's dead, you only have the version or the answer to the questions that you ever asked them in life. So part of that was explored in that but also I did a lot of research on Qandeel Baloch, because she was the infamous kind of Pakistani. She's called the Pakistani Kim Kardashian, and she was killed for being an Instagram star. Her Instagram is no more salacious than any young woman's in this country, and there was a lot of parallels. So there was a lot of research into her and to other figures at the time. And I actually did manage to get in touch with the male presenter years ago, and we had a chat. And so I spoke a bit about her, and sort of like had to conduct my own research. And then some of it was informed by other stories, and that's why it's inspired by because it couldn't be the full truth, because I couldn't get all the information.

Shiroma 32:45

How did Afghans respond to it in the end?

Waleed 32:48

Oh, really well. I think they can sort of tell that it was a bit of a British lens on the story as well, because we did it without accents and things like that. But it was really important to me that we engaged with that community, so they did come and watch it, and overwhelmingly, like enjoyed it. And I think again, it's a difference about someone writing about that community, who's trying to write from there, rather than like from outside it or explain it. And and I try to connect with it from my Muslim heritage as well.

Shiroma 33:17

So there was an authenticity.

Waleed 33:19

I hope so, yeah, but again, you'd have to ask the community, yeah. But also it was really important that in the production that we had, one of the actors did have Afghan heritage as well. I always try to have a nod to that, because I think that just does something. And also she was an amazing actor. So we lucked out on two fronts.

Jaswinder 33:38

On that note, kind of thinking about representation that you alluded to there. I wanted to ask about your thoughts about the kind of development of British South Asian theatre, in particular, the time that you've spent in the industry since you started acting and writing. What have you seen in terms of changes in terms of what stories get staged and which voices get heard?

Waleed 33:58

I think it's like a really exciting time. At the moment, there's so many interesting writers coming through. I remember when I first started out as an actor, I think maybe there was a bit of a nod to like, these are the stories we're supposed to tell, or these are the topics that we're supposed to concentrate on, which sometimes, as a South Asian can be off putting, like, I don't want to watch a story about radicalization, and maybe that's what certain people were thinking. This was what this community needs to tackle or look into. But I think, yeah, really heartened by a lot of the interesting voices that are coming out, the different kinds of plays, the experimenting with, like theatricality. It's exciting from the point of view as an actor, but also just as someone watching a lot of theatre, I think there's a lot of sea change. There's also a lot of work still to be done when thinking about South Asian work and how it is received in this country, or how it is treated.

Shiroma 34:56

And on that point can I ask, what are the what are the barriers that are still there, that's stopping other writers from the diaspora, coming to where you are now?

Waleed 35:06

It's not just about coming through. I think there's the, you know, the barriers that we know that I think a lot of people are facing, but are acute to people of color. You know, with cuts, there's not as many new writing venues. A lot of the infrastructure has gone such as for new writing, such as the Vaults Festival, where it was somewhere you could sort of try things. But then also, I think maybe those weren't always accessible to people of color, because we didn't always know that we could just get our work on. Those models aren't always accessible to us. And then I think there's also that thing of there's uncharted territory for a lot of Asian writers about like, what happens next once you do have your first play on, how do you then sustain that into something? I've known many writers who get one play on, it's a bit of a hit, and then there isn't the follow up. It's like wanting to consume that new voice. And once you have, or you've had that little bit of authenticity, you move on to the next. And that's also about where is our work going to, you know, on bigger stages like we need to we've seen recently with some of the transfers from The Bush like Red Pitch and Shifters like this. Amazing work is going into the West End. I think we need more of that from the South Asian people from a South Asian background, and just yeah, like more people to commission it and take it seriously.

Jaswinder 36:25

Have you seen audiences change in that time? And do you think there's more that theatres can be doing to actually reach South Asian audiences?

Waleed 36:32

Definitely. So Kabul took on a life of its own. Someone posted a Tiktok about the play, and suddenly all these people...

Jaswinder 36:41

You went viral.

Waleed 36:42

Yeah, we went viral. And all these people coming to watch the play that I really wanted to come and watch it, and had no idea how they were, you know, hearing about it, but it had been this Tiktok. So it's sort of finding the people are finding it themselves. But, yeah, marketing departments could be more on that. And then with The P Word. It was this beautiful experience of word of mouth. This South Asian community came to see it, this queer South Asian community came to see it, and I was having conversations with a lot of them afterwards, and then they were telling their friends, and it became this big, like word of mouth thing. So there is a hunger for that work and for stories that maybe come at things from different angle.

Shiroma 37:22

And are the audiences widening, say, with The P Word outside of the South Asian and queer audiences?

Waleed 37:33

Yeah, I think with The P Word, we really tapped into quite a wide audience. So it was, you know, a lot of queer people, a lot of just your average kind of theatre goers. It was hugely wide. And there was this moment in the middle of it all where we were in the Metro as, like, the most romantic show in London. And so obviously, just tapped into something quite universal. And people I know who came to watch it said to me, it's just the love story that happens to be centered around two queer men, and that was like, Oh, wow. Like you're seeing it as that also like our story is being allowed to be seen in a universal context, or allowed to tap into those bigger emotions, rather than, I think sometimes we get lumbered with having to explain our community or these social issues, and that isn't always useful.

Shiroma 38:22

That's an encouraging change then.

Waleed 38:24

Yeah, definitely.

Rukhsana 38:24

Well, I was going to ask you one final question about plays. Of your two plays, which is your favorite?

Waleed 38:32

My mum has this expression whenever her kids are like, Oh, which one of us is your favorite? She's like, I have five fingers. If you cut off one of my fingers, it would hurt as much on any other. I love all of my plays. I love both of them for very different reasons. Maybe Kabul holds a little special place in my heart because it was the first one that came on, and it was on at Brixton House, and then did a tour with High Tide. And I think Farook is a lot of my sense of humor. So there's a lot of me invested in that character. And also because I wanted to be a Bollywood TV presenter. Yeah.

Jaswinder 39:10

He's living out that dream, yeah.

Waleed 39:12

In one way or another.

Rukhsana 39:14

Is there a line from it that you would like to quote from us?

Waleed 39:17

I mean, I'm so bad..

Jaswinder 39:19

Or a moment, if there's not a line.

Waleed 39:21

Yeah, I was so bad for remembering lines from my own plays, like even when I was in it, I was getting noted by the assistant director, going, you said this wrong, and it feels really weird because you wrote it like, ah, but maybe it is. The one thing that I'm super proud of is like, how that Britney Spears lyric changed from beginning to end, and in the printed version, Nick Hern was so lovely, they paid an extra, like, I don't know how much, like, maybe two, 300 pounds, just so that we could print out the lyric that I thought was so important. So, yeah, maybe it's my Ode to Britney. And that extra 300 quid we gave her.

Shiroma 39:55

That was, of course, Britney's song Hit Me, Baby One More Time. Waleed, thank you so much.

Waleed 40:00

Pleasures all mine.

Shiroma 40:04

The Next Aact is executive produced by Jaswinder Blackwell-Pal, Shiroma Silva and Rukhsana Ahmad. It is edited and assistant produced by Kavita Kukar and Malia Haider. Our research assistant is Carrie Luce and the technical producer is Matthew Kowalczuk. Our designer is Arjun Mahadevan. It is funded and supported by the Center for Public Engagement and the Department of drama at Queen Mary University of London. You can follow up online at www.thenextact.co.uk.