THE BLACK ALBUM - a National Theatre & TARA Arts co-production goes on sale 15 May '09

Religion is for the benefit of the masses, not for brain-box types like you. Those simpletons require strict rules for living, otherwise they would still think the earth sits on three fishes. But you mind-wallahs must know it’s a lot of balls.

An Asian kid from Kent goes to college in London and teams up with a sympathetic group of anti-racists. But it’s 1989, the year of the fatwa, and as Shahid begins a hedonistic affair with his lecturer, his radical Muslim friends want to steer him away from the decadence of the West.

We’re not blasted Christians. We don’t turn the other buttock. We will fight for our people who are being tortured anywhere – in Palestine, Afghanistan, Kashmir, East End!

Hanif Kureishi’s witty stage adaptation of his strikingly prescient and acclaimed novel, The Black Album, humorously considers how the events of 1989 have shaped today’s world, where fundamentalism battles liberalism.

The Black Album will also go on a UK tour. For more details visit www.tara-arts.com or http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/

Cast credits:
Alexander Andreou
Jonathan Bonnici
Tanya Franks
Sean Gallagher
Beruce Khan
Nitin Kundra
Shereen Martineau
Robert Mountford
Glyn Pritchard

Production credits:
Director: Jatinder Verma
Set Designer: Tim Hatley
Costume Designer: Claudia Mayer
Lighting Designer: Jvan Morandi
Video Designer: Tom Hadley
Music: Sister Bliss
Choreographer: Shobana Jeyasingh
Sound Designer: Fergus O’Hare

photo by Hugo Glendinning