There is something to be said for the organisation and systems in place within the British arts circuit. Recently I have been witness to it first hand on a play called Mind Walking. This aerial drama is the culmination of a programme initiated by the British Council called “Connections Through Culture”, which is designed to put Indian and British artists together for creative collaboration.
The process started innocently enough. About 10 Indian theatre practitioners were taken to Edinburgh Fringe as part of a Theatre Sutra seminar, and to watch plays at the British Council Showcase. The Showcase features productions that the British Council wants producers from around the world to “pick up”.
I was sceptical. How does taking us there create any new work? Surely new work doesn’t come just out of conversation, it comes out of rehearsals. And why show us work, that we will never be able to bring back to India, because we really can’t afford it.
I was wrong on both counts.
The Showcase introduced me to Matthew Sharp — a brilliant cellist & story teller, who is performing tonight and tomorrow at the NCPA as part of the Literature Live Festival. We would not have known of his unique work had we not been part of the Showcase.
Secondly, at the Theatre Sutra seminar, I met Philippa Vafadari, artistic director of an aerial theatre company based in Brighton called Bandbaazi. We chatted about many things over a quick coffee break at the seminar. It turned out she was Zorastrian (not Parsi, since that is the term only for Zorastrian who escaped to India).

A few weeks later, I received an email from her about an idea for a show she had. An Parsi old man in a British nursing home, who because of his Alzheimer’s reverts back to his boyhood days in Bombay in the 50s. I was intrigued. I wanted to start work immediately. But I was now in a “British” system — grants would have to be applied for, and funding would need to be sorted.
Her first step was to get a funding grant to commission award winning playwright Tanika Gupta to write the play. Next stage was to recruit a director. Glaswegian John Binnie was the obvious choice because of his delicate handling of stories and his previous work with aerial trapeze. But long distance romances are hard enough, how do you create a play long distance?
The British Council & The SouthBank Centre came to our rescue. We were offered a four-day research and presentation slot at the Alchemy Festival in April 2010. Over the four days Tanika, Philippa, John and I sat down across a table and quite literally explored each other. Tanika had never written for trapeze before. John had very little idea what a Parsi was. And I was amazed to discover a Zorastrian Centre in London, where we met with elderly men who had all come to England over fifty years ago from India, Zimbabwe, Yemen and Iran. They told us fascinating stories of adjustment, identity and racism.
The next step was a “reverse research” mission, where the three of them came to discover Bombay. We spent a week workshopping with actors, interviewing Parsis and really understanding the culture.
Armed with all this knowledge Tanika then spent a year writing the play, and Philippa spent a year planning the UK tour.
July 2011 we had a script. And September 2011 we began rehearsal. Almost two years to the day since Philippa and I met in Edinburgh. October was spent touring the UK, and next week we begin the India tour. From “just a conversation” initiated by the British Council to an international tour; what a systematic journey it has been.
So how does a story about an old man, written by a British Asian, produced by a trapeze theatre company, directed by a Scottish, co-produced by an Indian and featuring a cast of Scottish, British, British Indian, British Iranian and Irish actors become a production?
The answer is through collaboration. Clealry, it is the way forward.