NEW theatre production Invisible, written and performed by Nikhil Parmar, is a dark comedy about a man’s desperate struggle to be seen as the hero of his own narrative. The challenging one-man play, which runs at Bush Theatre in London, sees the acclaimed actor adds to his already impressive body of work that has included winning turns on television. The London-based performer, who is clearly looking forward to sharing the new work with audiences, spoke to Eastern Eye about the latest project, his own close connection to acting and the stage.
What first connected you to acting?
It is the summer of 2005, I’m 10 years old, and I really fancy the girl playing the queen in Alice in Wonderland. I make sure I get the part of her bodyguard, so our rehearsals are together. On opening night, I do my only line in a super-exaggerated Mancunian accent, and the audience laugh, a lot, and I love how I feel after.
Which of your roles has been closest to your heart?
I had a part in a Channel 4 drama last year called Mincemeat, in which I played a brown kid who falls in love with a white girl, only for the whole thing to turn sour when he realises that her mum’s racist. The story felt very real and honest to me, and the process was very affecting.
How did Invisible come about?
I submitted the play to the Bush Theatre as part of their yearly open submissions call, and was subsequently placed in their Emerging Writers’ Group. After a few pandemic-induced delays, it was programmed for the Bush’s 50th birthday season.
Tell us about the play?
The play is a one-man show about a brown guy called Zayan, and is set in a world in which Islamic fundamentalism doesn’t exist any more. For this and a few other reasons, Zayan thinks that brown people, because they are no longer seen as threatening to white people, have become, in effect, invisible. The play tracks his crazy solution to this problem.
Is any of the story based on reality?
The story isn’t but Zayan, like me, is a British-Indian actor in his mid-20s, so I definitely see a lot of myself in him and vice versa. The world of the play is quite absurd and heightened, but some of the situations and relationships are drawn from or inspired by my own life.
What inspired the title of the piece?
The play is all about the lengths to which a person will go to end his self-diagnosed invisibility. I think loads of people, rightly or wrongly, genuinely believe that they are invisible – be it culturally, politically, socially or otherwise. ‘Invisible’ is an expression of the rage that this belief can induce.
What is your favourite moment in the play?
There’s a scene in which the main character, who is an actor, finds out that his ex-girlfriend is now dating his arch-nemesis from drama school. His reaction is immature, petulant, and unhinged – but very fun to play.
Is this one of the most challenging projects you have taken on board?
Definitely. I don’t think I ever thought about it actually getting programmed when I wrote it, but now that I’m on the cusp of actually doing it, I’m realising it’s gonna be tough, but fun too, I hope.
In your opinion, how does theatre compare to television?
I love both, but I would say that because theatre is experienced live, in a room, with a load of other people, it has an inherent potential for a kind of immediacy and intensity that TV maybe lacks? But I do love TV.
According to you, what makes for a good theatre experience?
I think the best theatre introduces complex ideas fighting against each other but hides it in a gripping and unpredictable story. The live element means it can induce true uncomfortableness, which I think can be a very positive thing for any piece of art to do.
What would you say inspires you as an actor?
Any time I’m struggling to make something good, acting or writing wise, I find the scene in Breaking Bad that has the most relevance to the issue I’m facing. Watch it, and marvel at how good, good can be.
Why should we come watch Invisible?
Because even if all the things that I have shoe-horned in there to make myself seem smart don’t end up working, it should still make you laugh once or twice – give or take.
Invisible by Nikhil Parmar is on at Bush Theatre, 7 Uxbridge Road, Shepherd’s Bush in London W12 8LJ, from June 27-July 16. www.bushtheatre.co.uk
Hunia Chawla
A still from rehearsal
Them performing liveNajmuddin Saifuddin Qawwal Group
Her book ' Under Her Root'Facebook/ AA Chaudhuri
Her book 'The School Gates'Facebook/ AA Chaudhuri
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