Tamasha Theatre Company is a British theatre company founded in 1989 by director Kristine Landon-Smith and actor-writer Sudha Bhuchar. Tamasha () is an Indian word meaning "spectacle". The company has brought contemporary Asian-influenced drama to the British stage, mixing naturalism with humour, and succeeding in attracting large Asian audiences.
Tamasha's first production was a theatrical adaptation of Mulk Raj Anand's novel Untouchable. Untouchable was performed in both Hindi and English, with action taking place around a large Indian village created within Riverside Studios. The company's second play adapted another novel, House of the Sun by Meira Chand. The stage set for House of the Sun depicted a large block of flats, including an on-stage working lift. The overall effect was "a sort of Asian take on the Australian soap opera Neighbours, dealing with families in a block of flats in modern-day Bombay".
For six years the company toured small-scale UK venues with one production a year. However, the award-winning 1996 comedy East is East ensured them wider national attention. Tainted Dawn (1997), examining the effects of the partition of India on everyday people, played at the Edinburgh International Festival. In 1998 they created Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings and a Funeral, a Bollywood-inspired musical. The show won the 1998 BBC Asia Award for Achievement in the Arts, and the 1999 Barclays Theatre Award for Best Musical. By the time of Balti Kings (1999–2000), a comedy set in a Balti restaurant, the company was playing larger venues nationally.
Among the many well-known British Asian artists to have worked with the company are actors Parminder Nagra, Jimi Mistry, Nina Wadia, Chris Bisson, Ameet Chana, Nabil Elouahabi, Ila Arun and Zohra Sehgal; writers Ayub Khan-Din, Abhijat Joshi and Deepak Verma; and composers Shri and Nitin Sawhney.
Since 2002, the company has run Tamasha Developing Artists – a professional development programme for emerging and established writers, directors, designers and performers.
Productions 1989: Untouchable, adapted by Sudha Bhuchar and Kristine Landon-Smith from the novel of the same title by Mulk Raj Anand 1991: House of the Sun, adapted by Sudha Bhuchar and Kristine Landon-Smith from Meira Chand’s novel 1992: Women of the Dust by Ruth Carter 1994: A Shaft of Sunlight by Abhijat Joshi 1995: A Yearning, adapted from Federico García Lorca’s Yerma by Ruth Carter 1996: East is East by Ayub Khan-Din 1997: A Tainted Dawn by Sudha Bhuchar and Kristine Landon-Smith 1998: Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings and a Funeral, adapted from the film Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! by Kristine Landon-Smith and Sudha Bhuchar 1999: Balti Kings by Sudha Bhuchar and Shaheen Khan 2001: Ghostdancing by Deepak Verma, based on Émile Zola's Thérèse Raquin 2002: Ryman and the Sheikh by Sudha Bhuchar, Kristine Landon-Smith, Chris Ryman, Rehan Sheikh and Richard Vranch 2003: All I Want is a British Passport by Nadim Sawahla 2003: Strictly Dandia by Sudha Bhuchar and Kristine Landon-Smith 2005: The Trouble with Asian Men, created by Sudha Bhuchar, Kristine Landon-Smith and Louise Wallinger 2006: 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 2008: Lyrical MC by Sita Brahmachari 2008: Sweet Cider by Em Hussain 2009: Wuthering Heights by Deepak Verma; music by Sheema Mukherjee and Felix Cross; lyrics by Felix Cross 2010: The House of Bilquis Bibi by Sudha Bhuchar 2012: Snookered by Ishy Din 2013: The Arrival based on illustrated novel by Oscar winner Shaun Tan 2015: Blood by Emteaz Hussain 2015: My Name Is by Sudha Bhuchar 2017: Made in India by Satinder Chohan 2018: Approaching Empty by Ishy Din 2019: Does My Bomb Look Big In This? by Nyla Levy 2019: I Wanna Be Yours by Zia Ahmed 2021: 10 Nights by Shahid Iqbal Khan 2022: Lotus Beauty by Satinder Chohan 2022: Hakawatis: Women of the Arabian Nights by Hannah Khalil 2023: STARS: An Afrofuturist Space Odyssey by Mojisola Adebayo 2023: Great Expectations adapted by Tanika Gupta
References
External links Tamasha Theatre Company website