Kiln Theatre today announces that Indhu Rubasingham will step down as Artistic Director of the company, leaving early 2024, having led the company for over a decade.
Indhu Rubasingham said today, “I never had an inkling of the journey ahead when I was first was appointed. I immediately felt the responsibility, but what emerged was both challenging and exhilarating, an experience I will carry with me for the rest of my life. It has been an immense honour to be Artistic Director of Kiln Theatre. I have learnt and grown so much over these past 11 years. It has given me the privilege and opportunity to work with many brilliant people, who have contributed to the successes of Kiln; a theatre with a mission that is heartfelt and held by the whole team. I am deeply grateful to the Board of Trustees chaired by Sita McIntosh and former trustees and Chairs for their support and guidance and care of Kiln, and also to the many donors and Arts Council England who have allowed the Kiln to flourish and achieve all the things it has. It is a wonderful space, that welcomes us in to immerse ourselves in different worlds, narratives and experiences. I have been very lucky to be part of its story. It now feels the right moment to pass the baton and herald the next chapter of this unique theatre.”
Chair of the Board, Sita McIntosh commented, “Indhu has brought so many incredible qualities to the role of Artistic Director – a flair for programming, the innate ability to combine the commercial with artistic risk, and to bring a wealth of voices into the Kiln, never afraid to challenge, to ask questions, and to bring out the very best in those whose work she champions. However, it’s not only on the stage that her presence is felt, she’s put creative engagement at the very forefront of the company’s ethos, firmly believing theatre should be accessible to everyone through the work and through training opportunities. She’s a rare talent, and she will be much missed. Her greatest legacy is the building, which through a major capital project, she has future proofed for generations, and it’s that building that will host the next chapter for the company as we look for a new Artistic Director to build on Indhu’s evident successes.”
Rubasingham took up her role at Kiln Theatre (then Tricycle Theatre) in 2012 - having previously directed Women, Power and Politics, Stones in His Pockets, Detaining Justice, The Great Game: Afghanistan, Fabulation and Starstruck for the company – and immediately, with Board support, repositioned the company’s mission to bring unheard voices to the mainstream.
Her first production as Artistic Director was the critically acclaimed award-winning Red Velvet by Lolita Chakrabarti, starring Adrian Lester as Ira Aldridge. The production was nominated for the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre; and Chakrabarti won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright. The production later transferred to St Ann’s Warehouse in New York and to the Garrick Theatre as part of Kenneth Branagh’s season.
New writing became a mainstay of Rubasingham’s tenure and was followed with Philip Himberg’s Paper Dolls – a new musical inspired by a true story with an international company combining languages, musical genres, cultures and gender identity. Other highlights include Moira Buffini’s Handbagged which examines the relationship between Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher. The production opened to critical acclaim in 2013 winning the Olivier Award for Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, before transferring to the West End and Washington, and Rubasingham revived the production last year in what was to prove timely programming. She also directed Marcus Gardley’s The House That Will Not Stand and The Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes (with long-term partners Lucian Msamati, Adjoa Andoh and Sharon D Clarke, the latter who returned for Susie McKenna’s production of Blues in the Night); and Ayad Akhtar’s The Invisible Hand, which was one of the last productions under the Tricycle Theatre name, and was later revived as part of the reopening season post the Covid-19 pandemic, garnering Olivier Award nominations for Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre for both runs.
Two key relationships under her leadership were with the writers Florian Zeller and Zadie Smith. The company presented Zeller’s triptych of plays – The Father, The Mother and The Son, with both The Father and The Son receiving West End transfers. Rubasingham began her working relationship with Smith with White Teeth, which was adapted for the stage by Stephen Sharkey and formed part of the opening season at Kiln Theatre. A book firmly rooted in the local community, Smith and Rubasingham followed this with a new collaboration on The Wife of Willesden, which enjoyed two sell-out runs at the company’s home base, before transferring to American Repertory Theatre, Harvard University and Brooklyn Academy of Music. Smith now sits on the Board of Kiln Theatre.
Other writers commissioned, produced and presented during Rubasingham’s period as Artistic Director include Anupama Chandrasekhar, Samuel Adamson, Alexi Kaye Campbell, John Hollingworth, Marina Carr, April De Angelis, Inua Ellams, Suhayla El-Bushra, Alexis Zegerman,Lynn Nottage, Zodwa Nyoni, Amy Trigg, Chinonyerem Odimba, Colman Domingo, and most recently Ryan Calais Cameron with the critically acclaimed sell-out production of Retrograde, directed by Associate Director Amit Sharma. Partnerships and co-productions included with the National Theatre on The Great Wave by Frances Turnley, which Rubasingham directed (and is now on the school syllabus), Abbey Theatre, Tamasha, tiata fahodzi, Fiery Angel, Eleanor Lloyd Productions, Bath Theatre Royal, Paines Plough, Frantic Assembly, Complicité, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Opera Up Close and Muju.
Perhaps most significantly, Rubasingham oversaw a £9m major capital refurbishment future proofing the theatre for the next generation of theatremakers. The necessary works preserved the glories of the original building whilst making it a theatre for today, fit for purpose for modern companies and audiences. The newly-renovated theatre features an upgraded auditorium with a flexible stage, better seating, improved accessibility; and a street-front café on Kilburn High Road. The theatre reopened in 2018 with a new name, Kiln Theatre.
During this period, Rubasingham and her team spearheaded an expansion of creative engagement work, putting their commitment to the local community and emerging artists at the very core of the theatre’s output. These initiatives included the growth of Minding the Gap - a drama project for young people aged 14-19 who are newly arrived in the UK, with lived experience of migration and/or who identify as refugees and asylum seekers from Kiln’s partner schools and colleges in Brent, Youth Theatre, Young Companies, and The Agency, which was part of Brent 2020, London Borough of Culture. In addition to the extensive Creative Engagement programme, Kiln Theatre also runs an artist development programme for residents of North West London, to support and inform practice, inspire and release creativity.
She led the company, with Executive Director Daisy Heath, during the Covid-19 pandemic, and utilising the support of the Job Retention Scheme and the Culture Recovery Fund kept the staff and building together, whilst repositioning themselves during lockdown as a support and hub for the local area. In recognition of this work, and their reopening season, Kiln Theatre won The Stage 2021 Award for London Theatre of the Year. Also, as part of Kiln’s post-Covid reopening, in 2021 Kiln created their new Backstage Designer Residencies scheme, mentored by Tom Piper, which seeks to have a real impact both on the relationship between creative freelancers and building-based organisations, and on the lack of accessible pathways into theatre design careers. With this paid training opportunity, Kiln piloted Universal Basic Income-type support for early career theatre designers. Routes in, access into the industry and artistic excellence are the cornerstones of Rubasingham’s Kiln Theatre.
The actor’s evolving style from youth to maturity getty images
Aamir Khan embracing vintage looks with classic charmgetty images
Bold and dramatic changes defining Aamir Khan’s careergetty images
From rugged to refined Aamir Khan’s versatile appearancesgetty images
Memorable film moments showcasing Aamir Khan’s unique stylegetty images
Aamir Khan’s blend of classic and contemporary fashiongetty images
Aamir Khan’s dedication to authentic character portrayals getty images
Cinematic milestones reflected in Aamir Khan’s on-screen imagegetty images
A seated Jain enlightened teacherAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Ganesha from JavaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
A Chinese silk painting depicting the BuddhaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
ArdhanarishvaraAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Head of a grimacing yakshaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
NagaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Bimaran casketAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Hunia Chawla
A still from rehearsal
Them performing liveNajmuddin Saifuddin Qawwal Group
The cast of Marriage Material in key moments from the play, including Avita Jay, Kiran Landa, Omar Malik, Irfan Shamji and Anoushka Deshmukh
Sathnam Sanghera’s 'Marriage Material' adapted into bold new play on conformity
The play Marriage Material at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s novel of the same name, which first came out in 2013.
She is lucky to have Iqbal Khan direct Marriage Material. The play, a co-production with the Birmingham Rep, is set in the late 1960s. Mr and Mrs Bains (played by Jaz Singh Deol and Avita Jay) run a corner shop in Wolverhampton. Their younger daughter, Surinder (Anoushka Deshmukh), is 16, her sister Kamaljit (Kiran Landa) is just a bit older.
They have a neighbour, Patwant Dhanda (Irfan Shamji), who, as we shall soon see, is not a very pleasant man. In fact, he comes across just as racist as Enoch Powell, who represented Wolverhampton South West for the Tories from 1950 to 1974.
It will be recalled this was a time when Sikhs working on the buses were told they couldn’t wear a turban. That was a hard-fought battle that had to be won.
The Bains, meanwhile, simply want to get their girls married off.
Nothing new here, I thought.
What makes the tale different is that the plot twists and turns down the generations. Mr Dhanda, who has the makings of a paedophile, makes a pitch for one of the girls when Mr Bains dies early in the play. “A life with no man in the house is no life,” he informs the newly widowed Mrs Bains.
Mr Dhanda has a wife but she has returned to India so he considers himself to be a free man.
Surinder’s English teacher from school, Miss Flanagan (Celeste Dodwell), who is also head of the fifth form, tells Mrs Bains about her daughter: “I don’t want to embarrass you, but she is bright. Ridiculously bright.”
She adds: “Mrs Bains, I think it would be a pity if Surinder didn’t stay on at school.” The initial response from Mrs Bains is not encouraging: “Too much education makes people’s brains get mixed up, they don’t sleep at night…”
But she is finally persuaded that Surinder should be allowed to stay on for a while longer before being married off.
Mr Bains was very old school. When Surinder confides she would one day like to be “a somebody”, he is amused that “my daughter wants to be a somebody”.
“Like you,” she tells her father.
Mr Bains consoles his daughter: “We will find a somebody for you to marry.”
At the point of a possible marriage, however, Surinder is sweet-talked by chocolate salesman Jim Wilson (Tommy Belshaw) into running away with him. They share a love of literature, and he calls her “Sue Bains”. But the relationship does not end well.
Once she has left, Surinder is written off as “dead” by her family. The story that is circulated is that she was only 16 when she was killed in a car crash. That’s better than to let on that she ran off with a white man.
By the time she is reconciled with her sister towards the end of the play, a great deal has changed. Kamaljit married Tanvir Banga (Omar Malik), a young man who helped out in the Bains’ corner shop. When the two sisters meet again, Tanvir has also died. But he and Kamaljit had a son, Arjan Banga (Jaz Singh Deol doubles up for this role after the death of Mr Bains). He has come home after his father’s death to help his mother who is still running the family corner shop.
Meanwhile, Mr Dhanda’s business has prospered. He now has a son, Ranjit Dhanda (the role is taken by Omar Malik after Tanvir’s death), and he is nearly as unpleasant as his father.
Arjan has an English fiancée, Claire (Celeste Dodwell). In London, Arjan worked as a creative director. But after deciding to stay in Wolverhampton to help his mother, he decides he cannot marry Claire because she is white. In other words, Asians are not free of racism, either. Happily, at the end, the couple are reconciled.
As for Surinder, she parted company with Jim Wilson after realising he was all talk, depended on her for money and had failed to earn a penny from his literary pretensions. She had prospered, though, as a hotel owner and had been transformed in time into a well-groomed businesswoman. After being tracked down by Arjan, she decides to return to her roots in Wolverhampton and help Kamaljit run the family corner shop. Perhaps 50 years had passed during the passage of the play.
Being subjected to racism turned some Asians into racists themselves. The word goreh (white person) is repeatedly spat out with venom. Maybe it is worth remembering the play’s audience isn’t exclusively Asian – white folk are watching as well. And maybe some of the toilet humour ridiculing white people, which always makes me cringe, could be cut out.
In Sanghera’s novel, there is a quote from Enoch Powell’s speech in November 1968: “The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact, he is a west Indian or an Asian still... he will by the very nature of things have lost one country without gaining another, lost one nationality without acquiring a new one. Time is running out against us and them. With the lapse of a generation or so we shall at last have succeeded – to the benefit of nobody – in reproducing ‘in England’s green and pleasant land’ the haunting tragedy of the US.”
In Marriage Material, where the acting is marvellous (apart from Mr Dhanda’s Indian mannerisms and accent being overdone) we do travel across a couple of generations.
There is a scene when Tanvir rejects Mr Dhanda’s vision of creating a little Punjab in Wolverhampton.
Mr Dhanda wants to take over the Bains’ corner shop and is putting pressure on Tanvir to sign the papers. He says: “In this country, money is the path to freedom.”
“Sign, please,” he instructs Tanvir. “We must make sure our children learn to behave nicely, according to our rules.”
He insists: “We maintain our identity so we can be ourselves.”
Tanvir disagrees: “We can be us here. With the goreh.”
Dhanda warns him: “Then we will be inviting chaos.”
Tanvir’s comment is telling: “You sound like Enoch.”
Kamaljit, who is expecting a baby with her husband Tanvir, says: “I would like my child to grow up knowing the history of the Gurus and to read the Granth Sahib. And to love their culture.”
Tanvir tells his wife: “I would like my child to go to the finest schools, to cheer for England in the World Cup and eat Yorkshire pudding on a Sunday.”
Kamaljit sets out a dream that has perhaps come to pass with many third and fourth generation British Asians: “Maybe our child can do both.” Much, much later, in a throwback to the past, we learn of Surinder’s O-level results: “Biology A, Chemistry A, English Language A, English Literature A, French A, History B, Latin A, Mathematics A, Physics A…”
Kamaljit tells her younger sister: “Never mind about the B.”
And that is quintessentially Asian. Their acting is outstanding.
Marriage Material is at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until June 21, and at the Birmingham Rep from June 25-July 5