Meera Syal calls on theatres to stop neglecting Asian audiences
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Version 0 of 1. Meera Syal has called on theatres to cater for Asian audiences and recognise the potential of the “brown pound”. The Goodness Gracious Me star told The Stage magazine that theatres are missing opportunities in not putting on performances that might appeal to Asian audiences with “an awful lot of money”. “There’s a very gregarious, moneyed, new generation [of Asian audiences] coming up, who spend an awful lot of money on entertainment and culture. And I think the theatres are missing a trick if they’re not putting on stuff that might appeal to those audiences,” she said. The daughter of Indian immigrants to Britain, Syal is a writer and actor most recently cast in Behind the Beautiful Forevers at the National Theatre, a story of Mumbai slums set in the shadow of luxury hotels, where “the ash from our cow dung drifts into their swimming pools”. Syal stressed that Asian theatregoers would not only see Asian plays, and that writers should not only write Asian plays for that audience. “I think [Asian audiences] go and see a lot of stuff. But obviously, they’re extra supportive and extra excited when they see stories that reflect their experiences or a diverse cast of people that they might know.” Syal’s novel Anita and Me, inspired by her childhood, led to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 2002 staging of Bombay Dreams, a Bollywood-themed musical with music by the Bollywood composer AR Rahman. Lloyd Webber said he had struggled to draw Asian audiences because, he believes, Indian culture is dominated by movies. He told the Guardian he remains astonished that “no major Asian investor emerged; we got a lot of promises, but nothing”. The apathy was especially surprising because of “Rahman’s involvement, probably … the world’s most successful composer. Forget me, forget Paul McCartney! He is to half the world a god.” For the London show, a third of audiences were Asian, Lloyd Webber said, but it made “not a huge amount” of money; on Broadway, it lost everything. Ajit Andhare of the Indian film studio Viacom18 Motion Pictures said that plays are starting to inspire film and television with new releases, such as Margarita, with a Straw – about a Delhi teenager with cerebral palsy – showing that Bollywood is now going beyond traditional music and dance. Kerry Michael, artistic director of Theatre Royal Stratford East, is among those who believe that theatres must reflect the nation’s diverse community in their programming. He supports Syal, saying that British theatre is failing partly because stories aren’t relevant to people’s lives. Although wary of stereotyping audiences, he argued: “Everyone, wherever they’re from, wants stories … about who they are”, their concerns and ambitions. He puts it bluntly, that “posh people” go to theatres to see plays about posh folk like Wilde or Coward. Stratford produced Wah Wah Girls, a British musical with South Asian musical influences. People of all ethnicities came, Michael said, because they want plays reflecting our communities’ complexities. Next autumn, Stratford and Birmingham Rep stage an adaptation of Anita and Me. Once new audiences come, they will get the theatre bug, he believes. While he praises the diverse work of the Royal Court and the National Theatre, and smaller playhouses like the Bush, he criticises West End theatres for not tapping into the potential income stream of new audiences. |