Camdenwalla brings to life an important but largely forgotten community initiative, the Camden Monitoring Project, set up in the 1980s in response to racist violence in the north London borough. The volunteer-run network monitored racist incidents and protected the victims, largely Bangladeshi restaurant workers, by providing transport to safety.
The project operated from an office at 60 Hampstead Road, which is now the Camden People’s Theatre. It felt very special to be watching Camdenwalla at the exact location where the action took place, taking site-specific theatre to another level.
Camdenwalla takes place on a single night in 1994, a time of extreme racial tension in Camden, on a typical night that is busy, intense, and filled with drama. Outside, racist mobs are a constant threat, roaming the streets of Camden while the police do little to intervene.
Inside the office, middle-aged founding volunteer Muhammad is single-handedly running a helpline, taking ever more urgent calls, sending out rescue vehicles to pick up restaurant workers caught up in the mayhem while trying to get home.
He is joined by his energetic teenage niece Alima, fresh from failing her GCSEs. Muhammad and Alima are polar opposites. He likes Bengali classical music; she likes hip-hop. He is softly spoken and considered; she is loud and brash. He wants to follow procedure, keep records, bear witness; she questions the point of his record-keeping. He believes the police will step in once they are informed; she is convinced they won’t help.
As the evening progresses, we learn that Alima has a distressing backstory. She develops from a flaky adolescent into a woman with strength, power, and purpose, ready to take on the hostile world outside.
Camdenwalla is the first play by actor Jonny Khan, who also directed. Through his research, listening to community leaders, restaurant workers and residents, he has highlighted an important piece of social and political history. The narrative is peppered with humour, largely provided by the light-hearted generational conflict between Muhammad and Alima. At an hour long, with no interval, Camdenwalla is an exhilarating watch.
Bhasker Patel is superb as Muhammad; his facial expressions, body language and physicality reveal the character’s surface stoicism and growing panic and despair.
Nusrath Tapadar perfectly captures the essence of the fearless, shell-suited, hyperactive teenager who steps up to take on responsibility for her community. She seamlessly switches to playing every other character, including distraught restaurant workers begging for help.
The intimate space of the Camden People’s Theatre gets a 90s office make-under. Battered office chairs, maps, landlines and pagers are the only tools of this essential lifeline. Despite countless applications, the Camden Monitoring Project never received funding. Lighting designer Skylar Turnbull Hurd creates sharp changes in tone between banter and horror, and sound designer Sarah Sayeed adds disturbing audio details that we don’t see.
Camdenwalla is an important play with relevance far beyond the streets of Camden. With racist abuse and violence on the increase across the UK, the performance is a timely reminder of the importance of community action.
Listings and ticket information can be found here
