Sudha Bhuchar's Evening Conversations Come to Tara Theatre

What's it like to be a "cultural leader" who has created many successes only to find you have to begin again? What's it like to reach a certain age and a certain status then to revisit your life, to take stock, to reassess?

Middle class, middle aged multicultural mother of millennium sons, Sudha Bhuchar lives a "squeezed middle" life in Wimbledon. As she navigates her friendships, family and returning to India as a Non-Resident Indian, the acclaimed playwright and director is prompted to investigate her own sense of home and her place in the world.

Evening Conversations is a warm-hearted and engaging extended monologue inspired by Sudha's evening conversations with her sons, as she invites them to share their dreams and views on life over a glass of Prosecco or two. Written and performed by Sudha, the work scrutinises the tendency we have to re-evaluate our lives as we grow older, discusses the complexity of identity and difference through the experiences that we share and takes a wry and affectionate look at the differences of perspective and outlook that divide us from our parents' and our children's generations.

Sudha Bhuchar is an actor/playwright and artistic leader and founder of Bhuchar Boulevard, a theatre company connecting across difference to touch the heart. The company's inaugural show, Child of the Divide toured across UK in 2017 and was shortlisted for the Eastern Eye, Arts & Cultural Award (2018) and received the Best Stage Production award at the Asian Media Awards (2018).
Sudha Bhuchar has contributed an essay in Scenes from the Revolution: Making Political Theatre (1968-2018) edited by Kim Wiltshire and Billy Cowan. Published by Edge Hill University Press in partnership with Pluto Press.

Recent Theatre performance credits: The Village (Nadia Fall inaugural show, Theatre Royal Stratford East) Lions and Tigers (Globe Theatre) and Khandan (Royal Court/Birmingham Rep).

TV appearances include Coronation Street (ITV, 2016) & Eastenders (BBC).

Film credits: Happy New Year, Colin Burstead directed by Ben Wheatley (London Film Festival, 2018 & UK release & BBC over Xmas). She made her first Disney appearance in Mary Poppins Returns (2018).

Bhuchar is the co-founder of Tamasha Theatre Company (with Kristine Landon-Smith) and served as co-artistic director for 26 years. Writing credits include: Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings and a Funeral (winner of Barclays/TMA Best Musical), an adaptation of A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, Strictly Dandia , The House of Bilquis Bibi (Lorca's play transposed to Pakistan) and the acclaimed My Name is... and Sisters, (National Theatre, Wales) with artists from India.

Awards include: Asian Women of Achievement (2005) and First Women (2010) - both with Kiristine Landon Smith for Tamasha; Tongues on Fire Flame award (2018) for contribution to stage and television and finalist as Best Actress in BBC Radio 4 Audio drama awards 2019, Child of the Divide (Best Stage Production, Asian Media Awards, 2018). She is currently working in Mughal Mowgli (a new film co-writen and starring Riz Ahmed) directed by Bassam Tariq.

Sudha is privileged to perform at Tara with this new piece- a place which changed her life!

Philip Osment (director) is an award-winning playwright, director, dramaturg, teacher and facilitator. He directed My Name Is ...(Tamasha Theatre 2014/5) written by Sudha Bhuchar. His play Whole won the Writers' Guild Award for Theatre Play for Young People. Philip directed landmark productions for Gay Sweatshop in the 1980s and for Theatre Centre and Red Ladder in the 1990s. He created and directed Mad Blud (a verbatim play about knife crime) and wrote and co-directed Inside about young fathers in prison) at The Roundhouse for Playing On - a company he set up with his colleague Jim Pope. His subsequent play Hearing Things arising from that company's work in the arena of mental health was seen most recently at the Omnibus Theatre and he is currently working on the third play for the company. His 1988 play for Gay Sweatshop This Island's Mine is being revived in May at the Kings Head Theatre.

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