Ashna Rabheru (Leila) in 'Favour' at the Bush Theatre. Photo credit Suzi Corker.
‘There’s going to be some changes round here, sugar and TV allowed whenever you want’
Leila is happy living at home with Noor, her loving but traditional grandmother. When Aleena, her fiercely independent mother, returns home from prison determined to deliver a new world of fun and excitement, their calm lives are upended in a blur of nail varnish and sweet treats. Family secrets come tumbling into the light, and Leila finds deciding on her future more difficult than she first thought.
Favour is a touching and hopeful family drama that tackles duty, addiction and the battle of putting yourself back together. Writer of Diary of a Hounslow Girl Ambreen Razia’s remarkable new play, a new Bush Theatre and Clean Break co-commission, tells a strikingly frank story of a working-class Muslim family in a way you’ve never seen before on stage.
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Ambreen Razia is an actress and writer from South London. Her critically acclaimed play The Diary of a Hounslow Girl toured nationally around the UK and was adapted as a BBC Three pilot. Her play POT which focuses on girls in gangs and children in UK care system was published by Oberon books and completed a national tour around the UK in 2018. She co-wrote her short film Relapse which centred around reoffending after prison. Her screenplay Romani Girl was commissioned and produced by Theatre Royal Stratford East in 2020.
Ambreen co-edited the BBC Radio 4 chat show Gossip and Goddesses with Meera Syal as well as being a part of several writers’ rooms. Ambreen was part of BBC writers’ room and on the BBC Talent Hotlist as well as being a member of the Royal Court Writers Group. Recent acting credits include Hounslow Diaries (BBC), Scrapper (BFI/Film 4), Black Mirror (Netflix), This Way Up (Channel 4), Starstruck (BBC) and The Curse (Channel 4). Awards include ‘Best Newcomer’ (Asian Media Awards), Eastern Eye’s ‘Emerging Artist’ award and ‘Best Newcomer’ at the Edinburgh Television Awards.
Deirdre O’Halloran is the Literary Manager at the Bush Theatre, working to identify and build relationships with new writers, commission new work and guide plays to the stage.
At the Bush she’s dramaturged plays including Olivier Award winner Baby Reindeer by Richard Gadd, The High Table by Temi Wilkey and An Adventure by Vinay Patel.
Deirdre was previously Literary Associate at Soho Theatre, where she worked as a dramaturg on plays including Girls by Theresa Ikoko and Fury by Phoebe Eclair-Powell. She led on Soho Theatre’s Writers’ Lab programme and the biennial Verity Bargate Award.
As a freelancer, Deirdre has also been a reader for Out of Joint, Sonia Friedman Productions and Papatango.
Gemma Scott has been a freelance stage manager since 2011. This is her first time working with Clean Break. Recent credits include: The Paradis Files (Graeae, UK tour); 10 Nights (Graeae/Tamasha/Bush Theatre); Last Easter (Orange Tree Theatre); All I See Is You (UK/ Australia festival tour); Zazutinany (Soho Theatre); Experience (Hampstead Theatre).
Gurkiran Kaur is a voice, accent and dialect coach from London. She received her BA in Drama and Theatre Studies from Royal Holloway, University of London before training as an actor at The Bridge Theatre Training Company. She has an MA in Voice Studies from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and is part of Freelancers Make Theatre Work’s Dawn Chorus collective. Gurkiran works at a number of drama schools and with private and corporate clients. She is part of The Voice and Speech Teaching Associations’ EduCore Leadership Team and serves as a Junior Board Member.
Coaching credits include Extinct (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Queens of Sheba (Soho Theatre); NW Trilogy (The Kiln); How to Save the Planet When You’re a Young Carer and Broke (Boundless Theatre); Best of Enemies and Chasing Hares (The Young Vic/Headlong); Red Pitch and Favour (Bush Theatre); Lotus Beauty (Hampstead Theatre/Tamasha Theatre); Henry VIII (Shakespeare’s Globe); Offside (Futures Theatre); Marvin’s Binocular’s (The Unicorn); The Climbers (Theatre By The Lake); Finding Home (Curve Theatre); and Good Karma Hospital for Tiger Aspect Productions.
Hester Blindell has been involved with Clean Break since 2016. In 2020 she graduated from the Stage and Events Management BA course at Rose Bruford. She regularly works with Urdang Dance
Academy as freelance Rehearsal Stage Manager and Production Manager on Rose Bruford’s Devised Season. She worked as ASM on Mountview’s production of King Lear in December 2021 and was Stage Manager for Poisoned Polluted, at The Old Red Lion Theatre in Angel.
Kala Simpson‘s stage management credits include: Female Shorts (Hoxton Hall), Beauty and the Beast (Queen’s Theatre), End of Hope (Soho Theatre), Room ( Theatre Royal Stratford East), Five Guys Named Moe (Speilgeltent Festival Square).
Kat Heath trained in Design for Performance at Wimbledon School of Art and Central Saint Martins.
For Clean Break: Typical Girls (Sheffield Crucible); Through This Mist.
For The Bush: The Burning Tower (SPID Theatre); Bush Bazaar (Theatre Delicatessen) and Fun Palaces.
Recent designs include The Third Day: Autumn and Audiences of the Future (Punchdrunk, HBO/Sky); Fire Songs, Sensory Studio, The Isle of Brimsker, 2065, A Night Out in Nature (Frozen Light); A Curious Quest, Punchdrunk Bus, Woolwich Hall of Fame (Punchdrunk Enrichment); Our Man in Havana (Watermill Theatre); Odds On (Dante or Die); Il Tabarro (Copenhagen Opera Festival); Peaky Blinders (Rambert); Punk Alley (Moxie Brawl); Drive Thru (BLINK Dance theatre); Dirt, WOW Everything is Amazing, Fire in the Machine (SOUNDS LIKE CHAOS); MSND (Rift); The Forest of Forgotten Discos (Contact Theatre); The Redux Project (Richard Dedomenici, BAC/BBC); The Hollow Hotel (DifferencEngine); Macbeth, I’m Super Thanks (Proteus); Princess Charming (Spun Glass); Bridges y Puentes (Theatre Royal Stratford East); You’ve Changed, Big Girl’s Blouse (TransCreative); Così fan tutte (Bury Court Opera); The Importance of Being Earnest, The Two Worlds of Charlie F (Theatre Royal Haymarket); Henry V, A Doll’s House, Shelf Life, Chaika Casino, A Christmas Carol (Theatre Delicatessen); L’Orfeo, La bohème, Dido and Aeneas (Silent Opera); and Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance (Belle & Sebastian).
Liz Whitbread has been involved with Clean Break since 2012. In 2019 she graduated from Wimbledon UAL in Theatre Design. Liz notably collaborated on a mobile exhibition inspired by Clean Break’s archive, which toured the UK alongside 2019’s Sweatbox, set inside a prison van, and was then re-imagined as an installation for the retrospective exhibition ‘I am a theatre’: 40 years of Clean Break Theatre Company, at Swiss Cottage Gallery in summer 2021.
Maryam is a facilitator and theatre maker who co-creates theatre with young people and communities in the UK and Malaysia. She has facilitated workshops and performances at a range of organisations including, Almeida, Angel Shed, Kiln, PositivelyUK, Unlock Drama and the UNHCR.
She runs a writing group for Muslim Women at Stockroom and is a Visiting Lecturer at The Royal Central School of Speech & Drama. Joy and play are at the heart of her practice, and she is passionate about using theatre for social change.
Ola works primarily as a lighting technician focusing on practicals and set electrics.
Her recent theatre credits include: production electrician & programmer for Dead Air (Riverside Studios); lighting designer for Barrier(s) (National Theatre); This Be The Verse (The Hen & Chickens Theatre) and Almost Adult (The Space); set electrics as part of Lamp&Pencil for SiX (Lyric/Vaudeville Theatre); Moulin Rouge (Piccadilly Theatre); Frozen (Theatre Royal Drury Lane); Ocean at the End of the Lane (Duke of York’s Theatre); Fantastically Great Women (UK tour); Beauty and the Beast (UK tour) and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (UK tour).
She graduated from LAMDA in 2021 after working for five years as a cinematographer and video editor in Warsaw.
Róisín McBrinn is Joint Artistic Director of Clean Break. She has over fifteen years’ experience as a theatre director working in the UK, Ireland and internationally.
For Clean Break she has directed Thick as Thieves (Theatr Clwyd), Joanne (Soho Theatre and RSC) and House/Amongst the Reeds (Yard Theatre). Amongst others, Róisín has directed for The Abbey Theatre in Dublin (A Taste of Honey/No Escape/ Perve/Heartbreak House), The Gate Theatre Dublin (The Snapper), Sheffield Theatres (Afterplay), Leeds Playhouse (Yerma), The Tricycle (The Field) and as Associate Director for Sherman Theatre (Before It Rains, Sleeping Beauties and It’s A Family Affair). Her awards include the Quercus Award (National Theatre) and the Young Vic Jerwood Young Directors’ Award. She has been nominated for the Irish Times Best Director Award.
Sabia studied Costume Construction and Supervision at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Credits include La Gioconda, The Life and Death of Alexander Litvinenko, Falstaff, Don Carlos (Grange Park Opera); Anne of Green Gables (London Children’s Ballet); Love and Other Acts of Violence (Donmar Warehouse); Intimate Apparel, Blue Stockings, BOY (LAMDA); WhoDunnit [Unrehearsed] (Park Theatre); Zauberland (Theatres des Bouffes du Nord/Royal Opera House); Twelfth Night (The Watermill Theatre/Wilton’s Music Hall); Emilia (Mountview); The Pied Piper, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (Cornerstone Theatre); We’re Stuck! (China Plate/Shoreditch Town Hall).
Assistant Costume Supervisor credits include Message in a Bottle (Sadler’s Wells/Universal Music); Noises Off! (Playful Productions); The American Clock (The Old Vic); and Young Marx (The Bridge Theatre).
Previous theatre credits include Aladdin (Lyric Hammersmith); Mum (Plymouth Drum, Soho Theatre); The Offing (Stephan Joseph Theatre, Newcastle Live); Anything Is Possible If You Think About It Hard Enough (Southwark Playhouse); Two (New Vic Theatre); Pippi Longstocking (Royal & Derngate); The Last King of Scotland (Sheffield Crucible); The Importance of Being Earnest (Watermill Theatre); Strange Fruit, An Adventure (Bush Theatre); Sweet Charity (Manchester Royal Exchange); To See The Invisible (Aldeburgh Festival); Snow White (The Wrong Crowd); End of the Pier, Honour, Building the Wall (Park Theatre); Carmen the Gypsy (Arcola Theatre); Again (Trafalgar Studios); Richard III (Perth Theatre); 31 Hours (Bunker Theatre); Aladdin, Shiver (Watford Palace Theatre); Educating Rita (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch); While We’re Here (Farnham Maltings); Jess and Jo Forever (Orange Tree Theatre/Farnham Maltings); We Wait in Joyful Hope, And Then Come The Nightjars (Theatre503); The Sleeping Beauties (Sherman Cymru).
Sarita Piotrowski is a movement director and choreographer working across theatre, opera, TV and film. As Movement Director her theatre and opera credits include Jitney (The Old Vic); The Glass Menagerie (The Duke of York’s Theatre); Offside (Futures Theatre); Theodora (Royal Opera House); Jitney (Headlong & Leeds Playhouse); The Cunning Little Vixen (Opera Holland Park); Tartuffe (RSC & Birmingham Repertory Company); A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (Trafalgar Theatre); I Would Rather Go Blind (Omnibus Theatre); Underwater Love (Futures Theatre); Nell Gwynn (The Ivy Theatre) and Awa’s Journey (Arcola Theatre).
As Associate Movement Director her engagements have included Best of Enemies (Young Vic); and Nine Night (National Theatre).
Choreography credits include Been So Long (Netflix); Reflection Route (British Museum); Sher Yadet Nare (Manoto TV); Glimpses (The Place Theatre); Anything Goes (Hackney Empire); and Louder than Words (feature film).
Sonum studied music at King’s College London, specialising in piano and composition.
Recent credits as composer include The Red Sky at Night (Milton Theatre, UK tour); Arabian Nights (Hoxton Hall); Relativity (Finborough Theatre); Not the End of the World (Edinburgh Fringe); Rare Dreams and Persona both for Youth Music Theatre UK; and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Warhorse Theatre Works).
Recent credits as MD/pianist include 71 Coltman Street, Just an Ordinary Lawyer, The Railway Children (Hull Truck); Aladdin (Buxton Opera House); Dick Whittington (Grange Theatre); Arabian Nights (Hoxton Hall); Relativity (Finborough Theatre); Aladdin (Embassy Theatre); Not the End of the World (Edinburgh Fringe); Bend it Like Beckham (workshop, Dominion Theatre); Bring on the Bollywod (Belgrade Theatre); His Indian Boyfriend, Kat in Kixx (Stratford East Theatre); John and Jen (Rosemary Branch); Swallows and Amazons (Bristol Old Vic); and They’re Playing Our Song (Catford Broadway).
Sophie Dillon Moniram was attached to The Old Vic as an Old Vic 12 director in 2018 where she developed new play, Homo Sacer. She has been on The National Theatre Studio’s Directing Course and is a graduate of Mountview Academy’s Theatre Directing MA.
Her directing credits include POT by Ambreen Razia (National Tour produced by Rua Arts, supported by Ovalhouse and Stratford Circus); The Diary of a Hounslow Girl by Ambreen Razia (initially commissioned by Ovalhouse, with subsequent National Tours produced by Black Theatre Live & House Theatre, and produced as an audio play for Audible); The Falling (audio piece for Audible/LAMDA); You Bury Me (Staged reading) (The Gate); Uncle Vanya (Guildhall); As You Like It & A Winter’s Tale (LAMDA); Three Sisters (Guildhall); Homo Sacer (Staged Reading) (Old Vic); ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore & Women Beware Women (LAMDA); dirty butterfly (Guildhall); Midsummer Roman Feast (RSC); F**king Outside the Box (VAULT Festival); The Five Stages of Waiting (Tristan Bates Theatre); Indian Summer (White Bear Theatre); Creditors (The Cockpit Theatre); The Star-Spangled Girl (Karamel Club); Purgatorio (Karamel Club); Noah (short play) by Amir Nizar Zuabi (Young Vic Theatre) and several series of short plays written by prisoners (Synergy Theatre Projects).
Her productions as Associate/Resident Director include The Greatest Wealth directed by Adrian Lester (Old Vic), The Ocean at the End of the Lane directed by Katy Rudd (National Theatre & Duke of York’s Theatre), The Visit directed by Jeremy Herrin (National Theatre), Myth directed by Kirsty Housley (RSC) and Yerma directed by Simon Stone (Young Vic Theatre & NT Live).
Tabitha is a production manager for theatre and opera, with a particular passion for new writing. She trained at LAMDA and is now a production manager with eStage.
Her credits include Connections 2022, Barrier(s) (National Theatre); Red Pitch, Overflow (Bush Theatre); Old Bridge (Bush Theatre/Papatango – winner of the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre); Moreno (Theatre503); The 4th Country (Park Theatre); and The Dancing Master (Buxton Opera House).
Credits as Casting Director include Persuasion (2022 production: Rose Theatre/Alexandra Palace/Oxford Playhouse); Rockets and Blue Lights (National Theatre & Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester); Hobson’s Choice, Mother Courage and Her Children, Breaking the Code (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester); Coriolanus, Rutherford and Son, Desire Under the Elms (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield); Of Kith and Kin (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield/Bush Theatre); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park); LIT (Nottingham Playhouse/HighTide Festival); The Box of Delights (Wilton’s Music Hall, 2017 & 2018); Wonderland (2018 run); Holes (Nottingham Playhouse, alongside Sarah Bird CDG); I Want My Hat Back (National Theatre); Run the Beast Down (Finborough Theatre); Henry IV (Donmar Warehouse/St Ann’s Warehouse); House/ Amongst the Reeds (Clean Break).
Credits as Co-Casting Director include Gypsy, Macbeth, The Producers, Death of a Salesman, Queen Margaret, The Almighty Sometimes, Guys and Dolls, Our Town, Persuasion and Twelfth Night (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester); Parliament Square (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester/Bush Theatre); The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and Versailles (Donmar Warehouse); Shakespeare Trilogy (Donmar Warehouse/St Ann’s Warehouse) and Dedication (Nuffield Southampton Theatres).
