‘What is this Thing Called British Asian Theatre?’

Abstract

The article is concerned with the four-year Arts and Humanities Research Council project ‘British Asian Theatre', which is being conducted at the University of Exeter, UK. As the project draws to a close, its research fellow, Sarah Dadswell, problematises the issues encountered by the researchers when seeking to piece together a documented history of the formation and development of a discernible British South Asian theatre. Whilst she argues that an historical framework provides a useful context to understand the development and heterogeneity of the British Asian performance culture, she questions the potential ethnic ghettoisation from the mainstream that such a study may imply.