Making an Entrance - Asian Theatre in Britain

Available for over a year

Sarfraz Manzoor charts the history of Asian theatre in Britain, a tale which ranges from The Bayaderes, 'Priestesses of Pondicherry' - temple dancers who came to London from India in the 1830s - through to the current generation of actors, directors and writers. Sarfraz examines how political and social unrest in the 1970s sparked the founding of the first high-profile Asian theatre company in Britain, and looks at how the 21st century has seen an increasingly wide range of work - from controversial plays and new, sometimes radical, versions of classic texts to Bollywood-inspired musicals. With contributors including Hanif Kureishi, Tanika Gupta, Ayub Khan-Din, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, Jatinder Verma and Sudha Bhuchar. First broadcast in November 2015.