Play for our times

Bradford-born Asif Khan's play Combustion has taken London by storm and is in Yorkshire next week. Nick Ahad reports.
HOMECOMING:  Bradford-born Asif Khans well-received debut play will be coming to his home city as part of Bradford Literature Festival next week.HOMECOMING:  Bradford-born Asif Khans well-received debut play will be coming to his home city as part of Bradford Literature Festival next week.
HOMECOMING: Bradford-born Asif Khans well-received debut play will be coming to his home city as part of Bradford Literature Festival next week.

I’ve been reviewing theatre for The Yorkshire Post since 2004 and in that time have written a few five star reviews. I think the highest praise I’ve heaped upon a production is to say that I expect to see it in the West End once it has finished its Yorkshire run (still got a 100 per cent record thanks to the recent announcement of a transfer for Sheffield Theatre’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie).

What I’ve never written is this: “If I were running the National Theatre, I’d pick up this play pronto.”

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Those are the words of the Daily Telegraph’s long standing theatre critic Dominic Cavendish in a recent review.

There are several extraordinary things about this.

First, it’s quite a thing to stick your neck out and say such a thing.

Second, and this is the real eye-opener: the play Cavendish is writing about is Combustion by Bradford-born Asif Khan. Combustion is his first play.

I last saw Khan in the role I know him best – an actor. He’s been on my radar for a while.

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A former Salt’s Grammar School boy, he went to Bradford University and trained at Rada and has appeared in plays including the well regarded Snookered by Ishy Din, Love, Bombs and Apples, which was seen at Bradford’s Theatre in the Mill and then most recently at Hull Truck Theatre in the Richard Bean epic The Hypocrite.

There he shared the stage with Mark Addy and Caroline Quentin and acquitted himself impressively.

But it turns out Khan was beavering away at his laptop when he wasn’t on the stage.

Trained with the Asian Theatre School, the theatre that later became Freedom Studios, Khan found himself in the position a lot of British Asian actors discover themselves when they leave drama school.

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“At Rada it was great. I was in Chekhov, Shakespeare, had great training and really learnt a huge amount about myself.

“There were no restrictions to what I learned as an actor, I was there to train as an actor, pure and simple,” he says.

“Once you leave drama school and get out in the industry, people immediately put you in a box marked ‘Asian’. It’s a big obstacle and while it’s not overt racism, because of the way you look, you simply won’t be considered for certain roles. The only roles people look at you for are race specific – they only come to you when they need an Asian person for a role.

“Things are better in theatre. In The Hypocrite I played Mark Addy’s son and the fact that he’s white and I’m brown didn’t matter, but why can’t we have that same kind of thinking in TV and film?

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“We need people in those industries who are decision makers, who are writers and producers who can say that the lead in a detective show could be Asian or black. All we went is a fair share of the pie.”

Combustion, Khan’s first play, is a result of this desire to have a fair share of the pie.

Set in Bradford, it tells several interweaving stories.

“It’s about Shaz, a Muslim guy from Bradford who works in a garage where most of the action is set,”

“He works with two of his friends and in the city there is a grooming scandal.

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“There’s also a character called Andy, a leader of the racist EDL party and he’s planning a demonstration in the city at the same time as Eid. There’s also a young Muslim women who has formed a peace group and meets with Andy to try and convince him to come away from the EDL and join her side.

“I wanted to write the play because a lot of Muslim people like myself feel completely unrepresented in the whole debate that’s currently happening around our community. I wanted to find a drama that actually involved them.

“It was also really important to make it funny because, well, at the end of the day it’s a play. There are a lot of misconceptions about Islam and hopefully this play will make people think in a different way, change their perceptions.”

If all this sounds worthy, don’t worry: the five star reviews, of which there are many, all talk about just how comic this play that tackles serious issues is.

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Speaking of which, how does Khan feel knowing that the theatre world is alight with talk of the debut play from the actor-turned-playwright?

“I’m really chuffed. Reviews like that help to get the word out. I’m hoping to tour the play further simply because I think it’s a play that should be seen by various different kinds of people. As a theatre maker I just want to get my message out and maybe it will change views along the way,” he says.

“I just wanted to get down my honest feelings about some of the things I see happening in the world and create characters that are involved in situations and deal with them honestly. I wanted to create journeys for the characters that anyone could relate to.”

After reading the reviews I was tempted to book a trip to London just so I could see this play. Fortunately it is coming to Bradford next week for one night only as part of the city’s Literature Festival which begins today.

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Khan says: “I’m really looking forward to seeing it in Bradford and seeing the reaction to it up there.”

If the reaction in London is anything to go by, it will be quite the homecoming for this Bradford lad.

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Dominic Cavendish, The Daily Telegraph critic, reaction to the play was very positive: “Bradford-born Asif Khan has written a brave, important and necessary play.”

The Stage described it as: 
“A deft and powerful debut drama.”

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British Theatre Guide: “An engaging, necessary drama that people should see.”

London’s Evening Standard: “Lively new work about young Muslims in contemporary Bradford.”

Combustion by Asif Khan is at the Alhambra Studio theatre on July 7. www.bradfordliteraturefestival.co.uk