Camdenwalla Review – A long night of fear and defiance in 1990s London | stage

TIts theater address was formerly the headquarters of the Camden Watch Project, a volunteer-run organization founded to provide safe transportation home to South Asian restaurant workers at a time of rampant racist attacks. Actor Johnny Khan’s debut play is built on four years of research with the local Bengali community, transforming this chapter of history into a two-handed fairy tale, unfolding over a single evening in 1994.

Muhammad (Bhaskar Patel) is a Bengali from London who spends his nights coordinating an understaffed rescue service. He and his teenage niece Alima (Nusrat Tabadar) have holed up in his dingy office where the phone won’t stop ringing. The killing of a white teenager sparked a series of verbal and physical attacks. Frightened callers are pleading for help on Mohamed’s helpline, knowing that the police have turned a blind eye.

But despite the urgency of this story, and the importance of the setting, the play lacks tension. The setting of this station brings to mind the poignant film “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” in which Palestinian Red Crescent communications staff, under increasing pressure, attempt to provide safe passage under impossible circumstances. However, in Khan’s play, the off-stage plight of the characters is buried under the focus on Muhammad and Alima’s relationship, and the attempt to make them funny.

Their disagreement over which radio station to listen to, or how many sugars to add to a cup of tea, reveals a rapprochement that takes on greater meaning as the narrative develops. But these scenes also distract from the phoned-in stories from the streets, which Tabadar breaks character to deliver in Bengali. Likewise, Mohamed’s rejected funding requests deserve more than just a passing comment.

However, Patel and Tabadar navigate the oscillating emotions deftly. Under Khan’s own direction, a sense of dread ignites with the help of Sarah Saeed’s sound design that carries the thuds from outside into their haven.

It could take some refocusing, but in the wake of the Belfast riots, which also saw minority groups targeted, it seems particularly important to bear witness to this story, which is as much about the present as it is about the past.