Political plays - Tanika Gupta

The first collection of plays by acclaimed British dramatist Tanika Gupta includes Sugar Mummies, White Boy, Sanctuary and Gladiator Games.Refusing to be pigeonholed as an 'Asian playwright', Gupta has a fresh perspective on race relations, generational divide and sexual politics.A National Youth Theatre production, White Boy attempts to make sense of school-age stabbings and the nature of inner city white identity, in an increasingly complex racial landscape.In Sugar Mummies, the gender politics of the sex trade are inverted as wealthy white women flock to the Carribean to take advantage of the native toy-boys. But who is exploiting who?On the eve of his release from Feltham Young Offenders Institution, Zahib Mubarek was attacked and killed by his racist cellmate. Gladiator Games is a verbatim drama that documents the Mubarek family's pursuit of the truth and the incompetence of the official response.In Sanctuary a London churchyard becomes a haven for the gardener Kabir. When a photo of an African church appears in this little Eden, a complex drama of morality and conscience unfolds.

Over the past 25 years Tanika has written over 25 stage plays that have been produced in major theatres across the UK and has written extensively for BBC Radio drama. Some of her theatre credits include: A Doll's House (Lyric Hammersmith) Red Dust Road - adaptation of Jackie Kay's memoir (NT Scotland) ; Bones (Central School for Speech and Drama) Hobson's Choice (Manchester Royal Exchange); Lions And Tigers (Globe Theatre. Winner of the James Tait Black Prize for Drama 2018); A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (Hull Truck Theatre); Midsummer Night's Dream (Globe Theatre -Dramaturg); Anita and Me (Birmingham Rep); Love N Stuff (Theatre Royal Stratford East); The Empress (Royal Shakespeare Company); Wah! Wah! Girls - A British Bollywood Musical (Sadler's Wells); Mindwalking (Bandbazi Theatre); Great Expectations (Watford Palace Theatre/English Touring Theatre); Meet The Mukherjees (Bolton Octagon Theatre); White Boy (National Youth Theatre/Soho Theatre); Sugar Mummies (Royal Court Theatre); Gladiator Games (Sheffield Crucible Theatre); Hobson's Choice (Young Vic); Fragile Land (Hampstead Theatre); Inside Out (Clean Break); Sanctuary, Brecht's The Good Woman Of Setzuan and The Waiting Room (National Theatre); Skeleton (Soho Theatre); and A River Sutra (Indoza). Some of her Television credits include:
Doctors, London Bridge, All About Me, EastEnders, Grange Hill, The Bill, Flight, Banglatown Banquet, Our Lives As Animals ,The Fiancee and Bideshi. Some of her Radio credits include: Trumpet, A Passage To India, Death of a Matriarch, The Home and The World, Emma, Writing The Century, Bindi Business, Song Of The Road, The God Of Small Things, Baby Farming and Ibsen's A Doll's House.
In 2008 Tanika was awarded an MBE for Services to Drama and in 2016 was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Tanika has an honorary doctorate in the Arts from Chichester University and is an Honorary Fellow at Rose Bruford College and Central School of Speech and Drama. She won the James Tait Black award in 2018 for her play Lions and Tigers.

Raises fascinating questions about the differences between male and female sexuality and the relationship between the developed and the developing world
Independent on Sugar Mummies

A dynamo of a play - an exuberant tragedy
Observer on White Boy

I admire Gupta for using the stage to rub our noses in global reality
Guardian on Sanctuary

A work of real political importance; painful to witness, but entirely essential
The Times on Gladiator Games