Home
People
Organizations
Events
Themes
Oral Histories
Learning Resources
Tamasha Theatre Company
Groundbreaking theatre company, founded in 1989, focused on South Asian stories
Location(s)
38 Mayton Street
London
N7 6QR
United Kingdom
About
Tamasha was founded by director Kristine Landon-Smith and Sudha Bhuchar to fill a gap in storytelling on British stages by developing work that would speak to Britain’s diverse South Asian diasporic communities. They developed an immersive approach as part of their development process to achieve a more nuanced and realist representation that would challenge perceptions of homogeneity of South Asian communities in the UK.
The company from its outset was committed to new writing, professional training and education. Landon-Smith and Bhuchar ran the company for twenty-three years from its founding in 1989 to 2013, with Bhuchar leading the succession of Tamasha in 2015, before she left the organization to set up Bhuchar Boulevard with her sister Suman Bhuchar, a curator and cultural producer.
Early landmark productions of Mulk Raj Anand’s novel Untouchable, House of the Sun, Women of the Dust and the original production of Ayub Khan Din’s East Is East brought Tamasha to wider public attention both regionally and nationally. East Is East was the first British Asian play to be staged in the West End. A Tainted Dawn (1997) reflected on displacement to mark fifty years since partition. Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings and a Funeral (1998) riffed on British and Bollywood tropes of romantic comedies. Balti Kings (1999) focused on British Asian life in the world of Indian restaurants. The play adaptation of Rohinton Mistry’s novel A Fine Balance, Child of the Divide (2006); a musical adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (2009); The House of Bilquis Bibi (2010), an adaptation of Lorca’s The House of Bernard Alba; and The Trouble with Asian Men (2005) were also notable.
Tamasha has helped to foster the career of many actors of South Asian heritage, including Raza Jaffrey, Parminder Nagra, Archie Panjabi, Jimi Mistry, Sunetra Sarker, Nina Wadia and Amit Sharma, who took over as artistic director of the Kiln Theatre in 2025. The theatre developed co-producing partnerships with Theatre Royal Stratford East, Royal Court and Birmingham Rep, Hampstead Theatre and Polka Theatre, and collaborated with theatre companies like Kali. Langon-Smith stepped down from her role in 2013, and Bhuchar led the transition of the company to new leadership. Fin Kennedy took over as artistic director in 2015. Among its long-term collaborators is Ishy Din, whose plays Snookered (2012) and Approaching Empty (2018) were produced by the company. Since 2021 Tamasha has been led by the director Pooja Ghai. The company has evolved its focus, broadening its remit to become a platform for artists, writers and creatives from the global majority and centring their stories. The company has received Arts Council England funding.
Sudhar Buchar, Pooja Ghai, Kristine Langon-Smith.
Select List of Productions
Untouchable, adapted by Sudha Bhuchar and Kristine Landon-Smith (1989)
House of the Sun, adapted by Sudha Bhuchar and Kristine Landon-Smith from Meira Chand’s novel (1991)
Women of the Dust, by Ruth Carter (1992)
A Shaft of Sunlight, by Abhijat Joshi (1994)
A Yearning, adapted from Frederico Garcia Lorca's Yerman by Ruth Carter (1995)
East is East, by Ayub Khan Din (1996)
A Tainted Dawn, by Sudha Bhuchar and Kristine Landon-Smith (1997)
Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings and a Funeral, based on the film Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!, by Kristine Landon-Smith and Sudha Bhuchar (1998)
Balti Kings, by Sudha Bhuchar and Shaheen Khan (1999)
Ghostdancing, by Deepak Verma, based on Émile Zola's Thérèse Raquin (2001)
Ryman and the Sheikh, by Sudha Bhuchar, Kristine Landon-Smith, Chris Ryman, Rehan Sheikh and Richard Vranch (2002)
All I Want Is a British Passport, by Nadim Sawahla (2003)
Strictly Dandia, by Sudha Bhuchar and Kristine Landon-Smith (2003)
The Trouble with Asian Men, by Sudha Bhuchar, Kristine Landon-Smith and Louise Wallinger (2005)
A Fine Balance, adapted by Sudha Bhuchar and Kristine Landon-Smith from the novel by Rohinton Mistry (2006)
Child of the Divide, by Sudha Bhuchar (2006)
Lyrical MC, by Sita Brahmachari (2008)
Sweet Cider, by Em Hussain (2008)
Wuthering Heights, by Deepak Verma; music by Sheema Mukherjee and Felix Cross; lyrics by Felix Cross (2009)
The House of Bilquis Bibi, by Sudha Bhuchar (2010)
Snookered, by Ishy Din (2012)
The Arrival, based on illustrated novel by Oscar-winner Shaun Tan (2013)
Blood, by Emteaz Hussain (2015)
My Name Is, by Sudha Bhuchar (2015)
Made in India, by Satinder Chohan (2017)
Approaching Empty, by Ishy Din (2019)
Does My Bomb Look Big In This? by Nyla Levy (2019)
I Wanna Be Yours, by Zia Ahmed (2019)
10 Nights, by Shahid Iqbal Khan (2021)
Lotus Beauty, by Satinder Chohan (2022)
Hakawatis: Women of the Arabian Nights, by Hannah Khalil (2022)
STARS: An Afrofuturist Space Odyssey, by Mojisola Adebayo (2023)
Great Expectations, adapted by Tanika Gupta (2023)
Oranges and Stones, ASHTAR Theatre and Mojisola Adebayo (2024)
Wolves on Road, Beru Tessema (2024)
Chambers, Colin, Black and Asian Theatre in Britain: A History (London: Routledge, 2011)
Daboo, Jerri, Staging British South Asian Culture: Bollywood and Bhangra in British Theatre (London: Routledge, 2018)
King, Barnaby, 'Landscapes of Fact and Fiction: Asian Theatre Arts in Britain', New Theatre Quarterly 16.1 (2000), pp. 26–33
Stadtler, Florian, 'Through a Different Lens: Drama, Film, New Media and Television’, in Susheila Nasta and Mark Stein (eds) The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 537–56
Tamasha Theatre Archive, Bishopsgate Institute, London
Image credit
© Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1930s – present
