It’s a massive coup for Oxford that the world premiere of Before The Millennium, by award-winning playwright Karim Khan, will be gracing the OFS stage this Christmas.
Bearing in mind Karim’s last play Brown Boys Swim READ ABOUT IT HERE not only triumphed at Edinburgh Fringe after premiering at Oxford’s North Wall, READ THE REVIEW HERE, but then went onto the West End and on national tour, and you’ll get why we are so excited.
‘I’m really excited that Before The Millennium is going to to be part of Oxford’s Christmas’
Cue Pakistani migrants and best friends Zoya and Iqra, who work at Woolworths’ Cowley branch in Oxford. Anxious and excited about the millennium, they encounter a mysterious new girl Faiza at their Christmas party, who threatens to alter everything they thought they knew.
“It’s a story about friendship, migration, memory, and whether we can change our destinies, while taking into account that Christmas can be hard for some. So Before The Millennium needed to be something a bit different to other festive offerings, and as such was a really exciting proposition,” he says.
So where did he begin? “I thought about the Christmas stories that I enjoy and wanted to bring the same sense of magic to the stage, while portraying central characters from Asian and Muslim communities. People are so nostalgic for that time when Woolworths represented something to so many people, and in 1999 there was so much hope and excitement,” he says.
‘Before The Millennium needed to be something a bit different to other festive offerings’
And what did Christmas mean to Karim, who is born and bred in Oxford? “It’s family time when you have meals and watch films with lots of chocolate, all things that people can identify with. Everyone celebrates a version of Christmas that belongs to them, but the end of the year is also a time for reflection and contemplation, a time to think about the future and the year gone by,” the 31 year-old says.
And what a year it’s been, Karim’s world exploding after the success of Brown Boys Swim: “It was a massive hit which was incredible but rather overwhelming. I haven’t experienced that level of success before and I didn’t know how to react. And then I asked myself what meant the most, what gave me the most validation, and it was the audience telling me how much my work meant to them and inspired them, particularly people who might not go to the theatre very often. They felt seen,” he says.
‘what’s really important to me is to keep challenging myself, not to play it safe and stay in the same lane but to continually try new things, to stretch myself’
“It made me realise that what’s really important to me as a writer is to keep challenging myself, not to play it safe and stay in the same lane but to continually try new things, to stretch myself, even if it is the difficult second album.”
“So while there was an immense pressure to replicate that success and I didn’t actually write anything for a year, I then realised I had to let go of the external validation to let the internal voices back in and focus on my work.”
With TV companies vying to bring Brown Boys Swim to the screen, work flowing in at Soho Theatre, The Royal Court and The National, and new play Sweetmeats opening at The Bush Theatre in February, how does he cope? “It’s tricky to balance everything, but I’m quite good at focusing on one thing while keeping all the wheels spinning, except when I’m writing and just knuckle down for a month.
‘I realised I had to let go of the external validation to let the internal voices back in and focus on my work’
“But in terms of a time line, being commissioned by OFS to write their Christmas play was a very unusual situation because playwrights usually have to hustle to get their work into a theatre, whilst here I had something to work towards.
“So I get to tell my very own Christmas tale through the prism of my experience as a 90s baby, honour a generation of women who migrated here during that time and share this story with my friends, family and the people of Oxford.
“Which is why Before the Millennium means a great deal to me. I’m really excited to be serving up some of the Christmas entertainment in Oxford this year and take an audience on a journey – to help them consider what it means to be human, our hopes, desires, connections and all the messy emotions that we don’t know what to do with.
‘i want to take the audience on a journey’
“All audiences can reflect on teenage friendships, their hopes and aspirations, relationships with their families and homesickness. And we all partake in Christmas, intentionally or not. I just wanted to explore that from the point of view of a migrant or diasporic family
“I just hope I have done Zoya, Iqra and Faiza justice. I wanted to make sure we got it right and to make the characters as authentic as possible, because I became immersed in the characters very quickly. I got a sense of them straight away and felt as if I was speaking for them, like a conduit. I want the audience to understand how the characters feel and fall in love with them.
Does he know he’s onto a winner straight away then, or not until opening night? “There are so many layers that go into every play, but I try not to start writing until I feel have a really solid story there But once you see the actors, set and lighting in place it really comes to life,” Karim says.
‘you do feel vulnerable on opening night – those are your words and thoughts being spoken in front of everyone on stage’
“Which doesn’t mean I don’t get nervous on opening night,” he laughs, “because you feel so vulnerable – those are your words and thoughts being spoken in front of everyone on stage. But I’m also really excited that Before The Millennium is going to to be part of Oxford’s Christmas. I can’t wait to see how Oxford audiences react and what they take away from it.”
Neither can we!
Before the Millennium runs at The Old Fire Station from Dec 1 – 21 December. Book here: https://oldfirestation.org.uk/whats-on/before-the-millennium/
