Here are some more details about the one-off performance I’m in next Saturday. I’ve got a really great part in a play called ‘No Surprises’, written by my friend Mikail Chowdhury. He wrote it whilst doing the writers course at the Royal Court and is putting it on to raise money for a charity.
Here’s the spiel:
Set in the near future, the first Muslim Prime Minister of Great Britain is facing a terrorist attack and a nuclear crisis which threatens to pull the country into another lengthy and damaging conflict. As he considers a dangerous course of action that could lead to the deaths of thousands of innocent lives he is faced with a younger version of himself.
As the Prime Minister tries to reconcile his past choices and religion with the consequences of his actions, the time for a decision draws closer and he is faced with the choice of making the ultimate sacrifice.
This dark comedy explores the question of whether the greater good is always the most right course of action, and how far would you go for your beliefs.
I’m playing Tahiya, the no-nonsense advisor to the Prime Minister. She has a wonderfully dry sense of humour and I have some really great lines – sort of a cross between Margot from The Good Life, Malcolm Tucker from The Thick of It and CJ from the The West Wing…
This is the info about the charity:
We are setting up an initiative to provide medical care to women, their young children and immediate families in Dhaka (currently they have no medical treatment whatsoever and suffer badly as a result) and are working in conjunction with and NGO called Tarango (http://www.tarango-bd.org/) who do some excellent work taking destitute women and giving them training, a safe place to work, salary and independence.
We need to raise £3,000 for the first year and will provide a weekly on-site medical consultation service, pay for medication and provide seminars on things such as family planning, sexual and women’s health issues.
The event runs:
on
Saturday 16th October
at
Oxford House
Derbyshire Street
Bethnal Green
LONDON E2 6HG
020 7739 9001
with the performance starting at 2:45pm
Tickets are £15 (I think!)
The event is on Facebook here.
Rehearsals started this week and it’s going to be one step up from a rehearsed reading – we’re probably still going to be using scripts, but it will be staged. (Need to carry on getting my lines in my head today…) It’s a really great show with a very good cast and I’m really looking forward to it 🙂