An honour to be a part of ‘Staging British South Asian Culture’ by Jerri Daboo
An honour to be a part of ‘Staging British South Asian Culture’ by Jerri Daboo
A new book by author Jerri Daboo looks at the way Asian theatre culture has come to life and been received in the UK. Jerri is a Professor of Performance at the University of Exeter. She worked professionally as a performer and director for fifteen years, before taking up the position of Lecturer in Exeter in 2004.
It’s such a great honour for me to be a part of this book, which includes notes from four shows that I was involved in over the last decade, spanning Bollywood to Bhangra to Bending it like Beckham! Great to have these wonderful memories in this book and to be alongside other great actors including the late Sophiya Haque (Bollywood Dreams) and late Paul Bhattercharjee (Indian Ink) – both are acting legends I respected and admired – that were sadly gone too soon.
The shows I was involved in that are mentioned in this book are;
Bend It Like Beckham – Location: WestEnd Phoenix Theatre, London (One year run). Director/Company: Gurinder Chadha and Sonia Friedman Productions. Music: Howard Goodall and Kuljit Bhamra
Bring on the Bollywood – Location: Belgrave Arts Centre, Coventry. Director/Company: Samir Bhamra, Phizzical Theatre
Bollywood Jack – Tara Arts Theatre, London. Director: Jatinder Verma
Britain’s got Bhangra – National Tour of UK with Rifco Arts. Director: Pravesh Kumar
More information about Jerri’s book is below with a link to amazon…
“From Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bombay Dreams to the finals of Britain’s Got Talent, Jerri Daboo reconsiders the centrality of Bollywood and bhangra to theatre made for or about British South Asian communities. Addressing rarely discussed theatre companies such as Rifco, and phenomena such as the emergence of large- scale Bollywood revue performances, this volume goes some way towards remedying the lack of critical discourse around British South Asian theatre. A timely contribution to this growing field, Staging British South Asian Culture is essential reading for any scholar or student interested in exploring the highly contested questions of identity and representation for British South Asian communities.”