Waleed Akhtar’s play The P Word was first performed at the Bush Theatre in 2022, and now returns in a revised and updated version directed by Anthony Simpson-Pike.
Bilal (played by Akhtar), who prefers to be called Billy, is a British Pakistani gay man; Zafar (Esh Alladi) is a Pakistani gay man seeking asylum due to threats to his life back home. On Max Johns‘s revolving set of two raised halves, each man tells us their story separately until they eventually meet at a London Pride event. Movement director Rachael Nanyonjo captures each man’s character through their bodies – Billy’s pumping iron against Zahar’s quiet tension.
Billy lives a life of freedom, alcohol and Grindr hook-ups, usually with white men who fetishise his race. He has never committed to anyone in a relationship and works in fashion (“selling crop tops to teenagers”) while being the only brown face in the room. For Zahar, his journey to England has been one of fear and tragedy. The love affair he had built from childhood ended violently and tragically, and his family have disowned him.
This is an extremely economical two-hander that feels real from the first line. It emphasises how different life can be when you live in a place where you are legally safe, but also underscores that family problems persist even in the freest of cultures. Billy is “tolerated” by his family, who still wish he could change, ” have a proper family and kids”.
For Zafar, each day is uncertain. He has been placed in basic accommodation in Hounslow, denied visitors and not allowed to work. Travelling into the country on his brother’s work visa, he is subject to invasive questioning and disbelief (“you don’t walk gay”). The matter-of-fact way he describes what happened back home shows how many times he has repeated it to unsympathetic border officials who simply look to tick boxes and send people away.
The P Word can stand for several words – the slur taken from the word Pakistani, the word Pride, and the word persecution. Akhtar offers an insight into how cultural expectations and honour can impact young gay Pakistani men wherever they find themselves, whether at the risk of being ostracised, dealing with their own shame, or fleeing from the point of a knife.
There is a lot to be said in this play, which centres on romance and friendship. It is a piece of drama that never fails to connect, move or interest its audience, while finding the humour and contradiction in its two characters. Both Akhtar and Alladi offer finely judged performances that never feel forced or fake.
This is a political play – another P Word – that challenges perceptions of asylum seekers and how they are viewed. It also casts an eye on whether Islam can be compatible with a gay lifestyle and reveals another side to the family conflicts that have led to children being viewed with “pure hate” by their parents.
Billy, guarded, insecure and unsure, uses slurs against his own kind repeatedly, both against his race and his sexuality. He seeks out sexual encounters where he can dominate. The kind of love that Zafar, earnest, odd and open, describes for his lost partner is something he has never experienced. But this is a love story, a rom-com, within all the serious wrappings.
The P Word offers a devastating and insightful glimpse into the world of the gay Muslim from two very different perspectives. It is a complex piece of work that digs down into prejudice and perception (more P Words) while never once losing its focus. The ending, where the actors break character to reveal the statistics of people sent back to danger by the Home Office, is one you will not easily forget.
I’m giving this 4.5 stars.
The P Word continues in the Holloway Theatre (Bush Theatre’s main space) until 27 Jun. Details here.
Photo credit: Craig Fuller