Review: The P Word, Bush Theatre

The P Word is like a Hollywood movie in theatre. This Olivier Award-winning romance tackles massive real world problems: the asylum system in the UK, LGBT+ persecution abroad, racism within the gay community, and internalised racism, all while pulling us through an absorbing, unlikely love story. It tells that story in the best way: making it moving rather than heavy; gripping, action-fuelled and characterful; dense without ever feeling dry.

The romance is between Bilal (Waleed Akhtar, who also wrote the play), or Billy as he calls himself, a British-Pakistani man doing everything ‘right’ to fit in as a gay man in London, and Zafar (Esh Alladi), an asylum seeker living in temporary accommodation in Hounslow. Zafar is fighting the authorities for his life as he escapes his father in Pakistan, who has already killed his lover Haroun. Billy, on the other hand, is stuck in an unfulfilling cycle of hookups and empty socialising, until a chance encounter with Zafar at Pride. Despite being drunkenly racially attacked by Billy, Zafar responds with kindness. From there, a friendship develops into romance as Billy intervenes to prevent Zafar being unlawfully deported to Pakistan.

What Akhtar achieves so effectively is to anchor political and systemic pressures in intimate human consequence. Billy’s problems could seem insignificant compared to Zafar’s, but they have led him to deep self-erasure that prevents him from finding genuine connection. Zafar, meanwhile, is connected to his culture and at ease with himself in a way Billy is not, despite the constant fear he lives under. He gradually disrupts the defensive identity Billy has built around himself – the “fat, brown, gay boy” he still believes he is. Although the press casts Billy as the ‘hero’ of the story, the play resists this framing: each man is the other’s salvational force, and the romance lies in their mutual completion.

Both performances are excellent, with Alladi particularly compelling – commanding yet understated, bringing a grounded naturalism to Zafar that keeps the stakes immediate. The climactic scene on the plane lands with the force of a Hollywood set-piece, only here it unfolds in real time in front of you. Some audience members were in tears. It is always interesting to hear what people say as they leave the theatre; never before have I heard the phrase “life changing”.

This is all the more impressive given the simplicity of the staging. Two actors inhabit a central, circular revolving platform that does much of the narrative work. At first, the characters occupy separate halves of the rotating stage, physically divided yet moving in parallel, before the design allows for a literal coming together. As tensions rise, the rotation accelerates, disorientating the characters and intensifying the drama, as though the story itself has tipped into a controlled spin.

The final moment shifts register entirely as Zafar breaks character and turns to real-world testimony, inviting the audience to contribute. The effect is to turn the theatre inside out. The story does not end on stage, but continues outside it – in solidarity.

Written by Waleed Akhtar
Directed by Anthony Simpson-Pike
Set and costume by Max Johns
Lighting design by Elliot Griggs
Sound design by Xana
Composed by Niraj Chai
Movement direction by Rachael Nanyonjo
Dramaturgy by Deirdre O’Halloran
Produced by Tan France and Dr Ranj Singh

The P Word plays at Bush Theatre until Saturday 27 June.