Award-winning actor-playwright Sudha Bhuchar established Bhuchar Boulevard to produce heartfelt, memorable theatre for multiple and diverse audiences by holding up a mirror to our common humanity. Her inaugural show under the banner, ‘Child of the Divide’, about the Partition of India seen through the eyes of children, won Best Stage Production at the Asian Media Awards in 2018.
Now, her latest one-woman show ‘Evening Conversations’ is on its way to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival towards the end of this month after a critically praised run at London’s Soho Theatre, numerous festival performances and an audio version release on Audible.
It is part of a collection of work, written by Bhuchar, that explores aspects of family life, friendship, transition, grief, identity, and connection. Middle class, middle aged, multicultural mother of millennial sons, the protagonist lives a “squeezed middle” life in Wimbledon. As she navigates her career, family and returning to India as a NRI (Non-Resident Indian), she is prompted to investigate her own sense of home and place in the world. Inextricably shaped by Bhuchar’s own cross-continental childhood, a far cry from her sons’ upbringing in leafy Wimbledon, ‘Evening Conversations’ is warm hearted, humorous, and truthful storytelling.
MORE LIKE THIS…
Bhuchar invites her boys to “crack open a cold one” and share their views on life. Will her dual heritage (Hindu/Indian and Muslim/Pakistani), fiercely British, mono-lingual sons see their background as a place of strength or an unwelcome inheritance? Shots are fired in the quick-fire exchanges between mother and sons, forcing Bhuchar to take stock.
‘Evening Conversations’ is dedicated to the late playwright and director Philip Osment, Bhuchar’s friend and mentor
The actor-writer’s evolving practice of capturing verbatim conversations as a journey into writing also informed the moving evocation of pandemic loss, love and resilience ‘Final Farewell’ (Tara Theatre 2021). This reflective and collaborative audio promenade performance honouring the losses people have experienced during Covid premiered at Tara Theatre and has since played at Brighton Fringe, Queens Theatre Hornchurch and Greenwich and Docklands festival.
MORE LIKE THIS…
Bhuchar has worked professionally as an actor for four decades and her illustrious credits span across film, television and stage. Along with her colleague Kristine Landon-Smith, also the director behind ‘Evening Conversations’ she is the co-founder of the ground-breaking theatre company Tamasha.
