Imagining Bradford: Islam, Space, and Anxiety in Multitudes and Combustion

Abstract

Two recent British performance works set in the north English city of Bradford— Multitudes (2015) and Combustion (2017)—consider the lived experiences of British Muslim communities. Both plays are set against the backdrop of particular sociopolitical experiences that have affected Britain, including young people joining extremist militant groups and pedophilic grooming rings. The plays portray these communities as tied to the history of Pakistani, working-class migration to the UK. However, in doing so, both plays imagine Bradford as a site of conflict between Islam and the West when viewed through literature on place/space and the racialization of space. This imagining reifies a dangerous “clash of civilizations” logic while neglecting the city’s complexity, rearticulating Islam and its adherents as Britain’s social bogeymen. The plays’ use of the offstage space furthers this process, ultimately functioning to racialize the audience’s imagination. Ultimately, the plays create an anxious spatial politics vis-à-vis British Muslim communities in the UK that complicate theatrical efforts at representing the experience of British Muslimness.