Moving through casual hook-ups to the UK’s hostile environment, Waleed Akhtar’s sharp-witted and devastating new play The P Word charts the parallel lives of two gay Pakistani men. Zafar flees homophobic persecution in Pakistan to seek asylum in the UK. Londoner Bilal – or Billy as he prefers to be known – is ground down by years of Grindr and the complexity of being a brown gay man. Their worlds are about to change forever. The writer Waleed Akhtar, who also plays Billy, tells Stephen Vowles why he wrote The P Word and about its message.
How was the play conceived and why did you write it?
I’m an actor and was bored of what I was reading. I really wanted to see a queer Muslim story that wasn’t pandering to the white gaze so thought I’d better write it. But also, I was reading lots about LGBT+ asylum seekers so wanted to tie it to their very real struggle.
Are there aspects of your own personal life interwoven into the story?
I play the problematic character of Billy and I’ve written it so blatantly everyone will automatically think it’s me… but actually, I’m worse! (Joking!!) There are always aspects of the personal that come up in everything I write, I can’t escape that. But this is definitely not autobiographical!
In your community do you think the challenges facing gay people are as prevalent as ever?
Which community? I belong to so many… that’s what I try to do with the play and look at them all equally. What are the challenges that face gay men in gay spaces? And people of colour in those spaces. What does it look like to be Muslim and gay? And what does it feel like to try and connect with people in a digital world.
If The P Word does have a message at its heart, what might that be?
We could all just do with being kinder to each other. And that the UK has a responsibility to LGBT+ asylum seekers (and asylum seekers in general) which it is currently failing at.
Finally, your two characters, do you see them coming back in another story?
Pay me enough and they can come back in any story you like. But seriously for the moment I’m happy for them both to live in their current world, and once I’ve had some distance, who knows?
Photos by Craig Fuller
The P Word runs at the Bush Theatre from 9th September to 22nd October at 7 Uxbridge Road, Shepherd’s Bush, London W12 8LJ. Box office: 020 8743 5050. Website: www.bushtheatre.co.uk/event/the-p-word-2022/
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