With an already established track-record of championing artists with roots in South Asia, Soho Theatre travelled to India in the early 2010’s and began what has now become a fruitful exchange of artistic talent. This work has spread across comedy, theatre, and creative engagement as we continue to build relationships with South Asian artists, audiences and institutions.
Last year our work was recognised by the Asian Media Awards and we are the proud winner of the 2024 Creative Media Award at the Asian Media Awards. You can read more about our win and what it means for South Asian creators globally in this feature article here.
With an already established track-record of championing artists with roots in South Asia, Soho Theatre travelled to India in the early 2010’s and began what has now become a fruitful exchange of artistic talent. This work has spread across comedy, theatre, and creative engagement as we continue to build relationships with South Asian artists, audiences and institutions.
Last year our work was recognised by the Asian Media Awards and we are the proud winner of the 2024 Creative Media Award at the Asian Media Awards. You can read more about our win and what it means for South Asian creators globally in this feature article here.
'Soho Theatre really is the leader in introducing great Indian talents to British audiences.'
The burgeoning comedy scene in India was underpinned by the opening of The Comedy Store in Mumbai in 2010. The financial and entertainment centre of India, it ushered in a new era of Indian comedy, supporting the careers of an emerging new generation of artists. Bearing witness to this flourishing scene, with performances primarily in English, we took the opportunity to introduce some of these emerging artists to the UK. You can read more about this story in this Guardian feature here.
This decision has led to several monumental moments. Urooj Ashfaq, one of India’s most sought-after comics, writers and actors, won Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2023, the first India-based comic to win the award. Her award-winning show, Oh No! sold out Soho Theatre in January followed by a successful UK tour.
In 2023, after working with International Emmy Award-winner Vir Das for nearly a decade, we presented his show at the Eventim Apollo. This event was followed by Zakir Khan at the Royal Albert Hall – the first Indian comedian to perform there in Hindi.
Our commitment to Indian comedians is year-round at Dean Street and during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In 2024, in partnership with Mumbai-based agency OML, we brought back the award-winning ‘Best Newcomer’ Urooj Ashfaq, joined by International Emmy Award-winner Vir Das, India’s most subscribed mentalist Suhani Shah, Most Outstanding Show nominee at the 2024 Melbourne International Comedy Festival Kanan Gill, with Anirban Dasgupta, Sumukhi Suresh, and Rahul Subramanian making their Ed Fringe debuts.
We’re very excited to expand our work with these artists in 2025 as we open our second London venue Soho Theatre Walthamstow.
When we first travelled to India, we’d already established a track-record of championing artists with roots in South Asia. Since the early days of Soho Theatre we staged the first plays from Tanika Gupta MBE, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti and Shan Khan (whose Verity Bargate Award-winning Office we premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival), and worked collaboratively with UK-based South Asian theatre companies such as Tamasha and Kali.
In recent years we’ve programmed internationally acclaimed writer, performer and public speaker ALOK, the Fringe First Award-winning show Brown Boys Swim, and two runs of the stage version of the critically acclaimed podcast Brown Girls Do It Too. We brought Sudha Bhuchar’s warm-hearted monologue Evening Conversations to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023 following performances at ours, and an audio adaptation on Audible. In 2024 we programmed the sell-out show Vitamin D written by an alumnus of our Soho Theatre Writers’ Lab.
In recent years there’s been an explosion of Indian talent, creating an audience in India hungry to discover the next big thing, whether they’re homegrown, from the UK or anywhere else in the world. Our commitment is to bring the best Indian talent to the UK and the best UK and international comedy to India. We set the ground-work and increased visibility in Mumbai in 2019 when we presented comedian Shaparak Khorsandi to a sell-out audience at the 1,000-seat Tata Theatre at NCPA as part of the prestigious Tata Literature Live! Festival.
As the comedy scene was taking off in India, in 2013 we took the play Blink, written by the Bruntwood Playwriting Prizewinner Phil Porter, and set in Leytonstone in the London Borough of Waltham Forest, to Bengaluru and New York, setting our international ambitions in stone.
In 2017 we returned to India for five weeks, touring Natasha Marshall’s theatre show Half Breed (developed through our new writers’ programme and later filmed for the BBC). This kick-started a regular programme of touring to India, taking ventriloquist Nina Conti there in 2022, and touring comedians Ahir Shah and Lauren Pattison in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. We formed a key relationship with G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture and the NCPA.
In December 2024 we presented Catherine Bohart as part of the very first Mumbai Comedy Festival and Ahir Shah’s Edinburgh Comedy Award winning show Ends for the first time in India January 2025 (returning to Mumbai in March). We also took part in an international delegation of artists at the 9th edition of the Serendipity Arts festival – India’s largest multidisciplinary arts festival featuring theatre, comedy, dance, visual art, music, and food. With sell-out shows at the NCPA, our future intentions include a regular monthly programme of comedians who we will tour in India.
In 2016 we launched our online streaming platform, Soho Theatre On Demand, enabling even more people to access our work from anywhere in the world. As we set about filming and distributing performances from household names to rising stars, comedians from India and those with roots in South Asia, like Aditi Mittal, Nish Kumar, Anuvab Pal, Sindhu Vee and Kai Samra, appeared on our platform.
When lockdown had us all confined to our homes relying on streaming services, we signed a three-series deal with Amazon Prime Video UK in 2020 to bring 31 critically-acclaimed and award-winning comedy shows filmed at Soho Theatre to Amazon Prime Video’s UK audiences. All the comedians we’d digitally captured over the years were now exposed to brand-new audiences, including on British Airways flights on our own inflight channel.
In 2017 we established the first ever Comedy Stage at the Mayor of London’s free Diwali on the Square. Nish Kumar, Aditi Mittal, Anuvab Pal and Kai Samra (formerly of our Soho Young Company) performed to over 300 people, ranging from 2 to 90 years of age. We continue to bring the very best comedy from the UK and India to this celebratory festival in the heart of London’s Trafalgar Square, our lineups so far including Ahir Shah, Anirban Dasgupta, Kanan Gill, Nayonica Ghosh, Nirmal Pillai, Rohan Sharma, Seeta Wrightson, Shalaka Kurup, Sid Singh and Tej Dhutia.
In 2024, we worked with the Indian High Commission to present comedian Rohan Joshi at their annual welcome event for incoming Indian students. His set was followed by a ‘Pub Quiz’ to introduce new Indian students to the novelties of British Culture co-hosted by Soho Theatre’s Creative Associate Pooja Sivaraman.
When we first travelled to India we took our flagship Primary Playwrights workshops for London school children aged 10-11 to Bengaluru, where we partnered with Jagriti Theatre. The culmination of these workshops were performances in London and Bengaluru, which showed that, though separated by thousands of miles, the children’s plays had many common themes.
Thanks to those who have supported this work including the British Council, Michael and Isobel Holland, and NJA Ltd.
Building on the success of our Primary Playwrights workshops and not wanting to lose momentum in India because of Covid-19, we delivered another flagship artist development programme in 2020. Writers’ Lab Mumbai, established in collaboration with G5A, gave 16 young writers the opportunity to express their ideas around heritage, identity and belonging.
‘[Writers’ Lab] brought me face-to-face with the story I am so compelled to tell, and why it’s necessary.’
Participant feedback
Soho’s expanding team includes over 100 people and we’re growing, particularly as we gear up to opening our new 1,000 capacity Soho Theatre Walthamstow venue in 2025.
Everyone at Soho connects with our work with Indian and South Asian artists, including some lead areas here. Pictured as part of celebrating our Asian Media Award win 2024 are:
Steve Lock, Head of Comedy, leads on our comedy programme and our relationships with Indian comedians and industry; Mark Godfrey, Soho’s Executive Director who established and oversees this area of our work; Pooja Sivaraman, playwright, artist and Soho’s Creative Associate in Theatre develops theatre and new writing initiatives between London and Mumbai; Bhavita Bhatt, Development Director works with our much valued philanthropic supporters and commercial brand partners; comedians Anirban Dasgupta and Biswa Kalyan Rath; Sam Hansford, co Executive Director Soho Theatre Walthamstow; Kelly Fogarty, co Communications Director; Farah Ahmad, Brand & Creative Communications Manager Soho Theatre Walthamstow.
And very much part of the team but not pictured here are Board Member Farzana Baduel who bring her wealth of experience and connections as part of her work as a trustee of Soho Theatre; Sumit Naganath, our Comedy Producer based in Bengaluru and Mumbai.
To contact any of our team, please get in touch with Annie@sohotheatre.com in the first instance.
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