In December 2004, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s play Behzti (Dishonour) caused riots when it was staged at Birmingham Rep. It concerned the (fictional) story of a child rape in a gurdwara (a Sikh temple) and the theatre, in a well-intentioned but misguided act, invited local Sikh leaders to a preview. They asked for changes to be made (relocating the play to a community centre), Bhatti refused, the play went ahead as she wrote it, riots ensued and violent threats were made. She went into hiding and the play was cancelled after just a few performances.
In Behud (Beyond Belief), her first play since that disgraceful episode, Bhatti delivers what she calls “a playful response” to the furore and it is by turns funny, impassioned and angry. It fictionally describes much of what happened in 2004, but also gives a platform for the writer to posit her thoughts on writers’ freedom versus responsibility, and if there should be limits on either.
Behud takes no prisoners as everybody - militant and politicised Sikhs, local councillors, theatre directors, the media - gets it in the neck for, variously, their stupidity, narrow-mindedness, hypocrisy, cowardice and envy in a play whose action takes place mostly in the writer’s head. But Bhatti doesn’t let herself off the hook either and in some of Behud’s funniest lines - and there are many - she liberally pokes fun at herself, here called Tarlochan Kaur Grewal. If we are to believe the playwright (as evinced in a thoroughly engaging performance by Chetna Pandya), then the writer slobs about in her food-stained pyjamas all day, grazes on fast food, has a healthy ego but also has doubts about her talent.
She needn’t. Behud is an engaging study of how a writer produces their art and in Lisa Goldman’s vibrant production all manner of theatrical devices are used - dream sequences, Pirandellian art-versus-reality games, and even a bit of Bollywood dancing at one point. Tarlochan is on stage for most of the play’s 90 minutes and steps in and out of the action, moving the actors around the stage, and engaging in debates with those involved in the riots or who made the decision to close the play. There are some neat theatrical in-jokes, too; as the play progresses, Tarlochan’s characters start disobeying her stage instructions, neatly establishing how a play becomes others’ property as it moves from page to stage - “At some point during rehearsals the writer always becomes surplus to requirements,” says the director as he firmly ushers the writer through the door.
Hannah Clark’s white-box set, with multiple doors, neatly encapsulates the writer’s confused headspace, and the cast of seven give strong performances. Priyanga Burford is wonderfully (recognisably, I’m sad to report) ghastly as a self-serving media maven; Avin Shah is comically likeable as both a young cop and a Sikh hothead; as is John Hodgkinson, who also doubles as a bewildered police officer and an effete director; while Lucy Briers does a terrific turn as a savvy councillor who knows where her votes come from.
Ultimately Bhatti offers us a (mostly) hopeful outcome as one character, at least, finally gets the point of Tarlochan’s play, and it’s a nice coincidence that Behud opens in the week when the libel action against science writer Simon Singh has been withdrawn. Maybe there is hope for freedom of speech in this country after all.
Behud takes no prisoners as everybody - militant and politicised Sikhs, local councillors, theatre directors, the media - gets it in the neck for, variously, their stupidity, narrow-mindedness, hypocrisy, cowardice and envy in a play whose action takes place mostly in the writer’s head. But Bhatti doesn’t let herself off the hook either and in some of Behud’s funniest lines - and there are many - she liberally pokes fun at herself, here called Tarlochan Kaur Grewal. If we are to believe the playwright (as evinced in a thoroughly engaging performance by Chetna Pandya), then the writer slobs about in her food-stained pyjamas all day, grazes on fast food, has a healthy ego but also has doubts about her talent.
She needn’t. Behud is an engaging study of how a writer produces their art and in Lisa Goldman’s vibrant production all manner of theatrical devices are used - dream sequences, Pirandellian art-versus-reality games, and even a bit of Bollywood dancing at one point. Tarlochan is on stage for most of the play’s 90 minutes and steps in and out of the action, moving the actors around the stage, and engaging in debates with those involved in the riots or who made the decision to close the play. There are some neat theatrical in-jokes, too; as the play progresses, Tarlochan’s characters start disobeying her stage instructions, neatly establishing how a play becomes others’ property as it moves from page to stage - “At some point during rehearsals the writer always becomes surplus to requirements,” says the director as he firmly ushers the writer through the door.
Hannah Clark’s white-box set, with multiple doors, neatly encapsulates the writer’s confused headspace, and the cast of seven give strong performances. Priyanga Burford is wonderfully (recognisably, I’m sad to report) ghastly as a self-serving media maven; Avin Shah is comically likeable as both a young cop and a Sikh hothead; as is John Hodgkinson, who also doubles as a bewildered police officer and an effete director; while Lucy Briers does a terrific turn as a savvy councillor who knows where her votes come from.
Ultimately Bhatti offers us a (mostly) hopeful outcome as one character, at least, finally gets the point of Tarlochan’s play, and it’s a nice coincidence that Behud opens in the week when the libel action against science writer Simon Singh has been withdrawn. Maybe there is hope for freedom of speech in this country after all.
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