When the P Word meets the G word
Photo: Craig Fuller
Daniel Nelson
The P Word is about two gay men of Pakistani origin, one of them British, the other an asylum-seeker - and what happens when their lives accidentally collide.
It’s about a touching, slow-burn love affair.
It’s about Britain’s hostility to migrants and Pakistan’s hostility to homosexuality.
It’s about the luck of life’s draw.
It’s about sexuality, honesty, courage, and self-awareness.
It’s about the arbitrariness and cruelty of immigration decisions.
It’s brilliant.
The two characters’ lives initially unfold separately. Bilal, anglicised to Billy, has cut himself off from family and Pakistani culture. He constantly scrolls left, looking for hook-ups, not dates. No relationships, just sex. “Bilal was the fat boy who got bullied at school for being a big brown poof. But Billy is the jacked music lad, who gets all the boys.”
Zafar, 32, a year older than Billy, has fled Pakistan, using his brother’s passport, after his father had his married lover killed and has Zafar lined up for death, and his mother flatly rejects him (“Don’t ever call here again.”). The Home Office doesn’t believe his story (“Up, get up and walk...See, you don’t walk like a gay.”) He has joined a support group for people similarly in limbo and waits desperately for his appeal.
The men are totally different, and their lives are on different trajectories, almost different planets. Playwright Waleed Akhtar (who also plays Billy) subtly brings out similarities: Billy is disappointed by being passed over for promotion at work and by his inability to form relationships; Zafar by his lost life and love.
You of course know the two will meet: after all, it’s a small stage and the play runs for only 75 minutes. However, Akhtar has created two interesting, credible people and choreographs the ensuing emotional dance beautifully.
It’s sensitive, truthful, funny, scabrous and moving. And there are entertaining twists - a Bollywood rescue and kiss, and a powerful agitprop whoop-inducing crescendo, a calling out of names of people who have been wrongly returned to the countries where they face prejudice, danger, imprisonment, torture or death.
* The P Word is at the Bush Theatre, 7 Uxbridge Road, W12, until 22 October. Info: 8743 5050/ https://www.bushtheatre.co.uk/