'Speed' at Kali Theatre - a review

‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife’.

Set in 19^th century Britain, this opening sentence of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ will be familiar to many, together with Gurinder Chadha’s Indian film adaptation ‘Bride and Prejudice’.

Traditionally though in India it would not be the man or women looking for a spouse, but the parents and relatives.  The ‘ideal type’ for a wife or husband among educated or wealthy Indian families would perhaps include:

• Doctor (preferably consultant) / PhD / MBA – from the top universities in either UK or US


• Wealthy or potential to become very wealthy


• No previous history – ie. has remained celibate / virginal, no boyfriends or girlfriends – not even a hint at fancying the opposite sex until marriage (this rule might be relaxed slightly for boys, never for girls)


• Heterosexual (of course)


• Same caste if Hindu


• Devoted to parents and dutiful.


• Girls only: good cook, passive and obedient.  Even if a doctor / PhD / MBA


• Preferably light-skinned (yes, I know – racist overtones – but the preference exists)

This is an ideal type, of course, which only a tiny minority will actually be able to live up to.  Then there is the rest of us and Reality.

For many of us, myself included, your 20s was a time of insecurity and confusion, also excitement and exploration - and trying to work out what on earth you actually want to do with your life.  More so perhaps in a big city like London where anything and everything is on offer. I know there are some – and I have known some very impressive 20-somethings – who are admirably sorted, focused and pursuing their goals.  But I would suggest the vast majority of us, especially in the West, are bumbling along, trying to make sense of it all.  Add to that parental pressure to ‘settle down and get married’ plus your own internal pressure to find a ‘soulmate’ to settle down with and have babies – no big deal then, just someone to sleep with and live with for the rest of your life – and it can add up to much confusion, heartbreak and anxiety.

This is the territory explored by the play Speed, which we saw last week at the Tristan Bates Theatre in Central London.  Written by Iman Qureshi – herself a 20-something, and performed by the innovative Kali Theatre – it focuses on 5 characters brought together at an Asian speed dating event.  Through a series of dialogues between different pairings and monologues, each character reveals their individual search for identity.  There is Qal, the slick city banker who is struggling to acknowledge his attraction to other men.  Sara, in a pink wig and short dress, seems in reaction to, or in denial of her Pakistani Muslim heritage.  Drinking heavily, when asked where she is from she says ‘London’.  And where her parents are from? – ‘London’.  Shalini has just broken up with her white rich boyfriend and Nikesh is marking the first anniversary of his break up from his girlfriend by coming to the speed dating event.  Perhaps most movingly was Sammy – born a girl but changed gender to become a man.  He is here hoping to experience his first kiss with a woman.

Susen’s first response after the play was that ‘it wasn’t very Asian’.  But what exactly is an ‘Asian’ play?  It was a breath of fresh air to have contemporary writing that didn’t evoke the same stereotypes of family pressure to marry the chosen partner versus an ‘immoral’ western lifestyle of boyfriends and girlfriends.  These are the 2^nd and 3^rd generation immigrants who have been brought up with western liberties and values and it’s good to see a theatre production representing these 20-somethings as individual, sometimes conflicted characters like the rest of us - searching for and trying to create their identities in a reflexive, complex, late modern, liberal, multicultural industrialised society that is London today.