Description: From traditional Pakistani weddings to fights on the night bus this is a funny, bold, provocative play highlighting the challenges of being brought up as a young woman from a traditional Muslim family in London.
Brief description: Ambreen Razia (born 1992) is an English actress and writer. She wrote and appeared in the sitcom Hounslow Diaries (2018). She has also appeared in the television series Murdered by my Father (2016), Trigonometry (2019), This Way Up (2019), Black Mirror (2019), Scrapper (2020), The Long Goodbye (2021), Starstruck (2022), The Curse (2022), and Ted Lasso (2023).In 2023, Razia secured a development deal with Expectation Entertainment to write a comedy drama series, Wasted, about a South Asian immigrant mother and daughter.BackgroundRazia was born in 1992 in South London to a Pakistani single mother. She took her grandmother's given name, Razia, as her surname. Razia graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of West London in 2013 and training at the Identity School of Acting (IDSA). Prior to this, she attended Kingston College where she studied a Btec in performing arts. She also attended Ricards Lodge School in South West London.In 2015, Razia wrote and starred in the one-woman show 'The Diary of a Hounslow Girl' at the Oval House Theatre in London. She took the show on a UK tour in 2016.That year, Razia was named best newcomer at the Asian Media Awards.
Review Quotes:
"What Razia's monologue does present, however, are the limitations of life through the eyes of a 16-year-old girl.
Her character, Shaheda, doesn't end up heading for Syria. Instead, after being filled with no less evocative lies, she ends up pregnant and stuck in her Hounslow bedroom. Her vulnerability to the suave ways of a local reprobate is less about the strictures of her heritage and more about her inability to understand what her expectations of love can or should be. In other words, in transcending the particularities of her Muslim-ness, the audience finds universally recognisable challenges faced by young people today. Like Shaheda, long before they're "jihadi brides", these girls are lost schoolgirls, desperate for affirmation, love and recognition." -The New Statesman
"a powerful piece of theatre... Ambreen Razia's performance is astonishing." BritishTheatre.com
"Razia proves to be as talented a writer as she is a performer. This is a sophisticated, moving and often very funny piece of writing, particularly nuanced in its depiction of Shaheeda's relationship with her mother. A smart, astute, and funny play about the life a British-Pakistani teenager." The Stage
"Ambreen Razia is cutting, mocking and empathetic by turns." Theatre Bubble
"This simultaneously amusing and poignant show reminds us that behind every seemingly surly and irascible teenager is a person just as human as we are."
"A fresh and hilarious play written and performed by such a talented lady that I did not just enjoy the play, I was completely and utterly impressed by it." Everything Theatre
Ambreen Razia: 'Whether it's gangs or terrorism, these girls want to belong' Theatre The Guardian