Tamasha: Approaching Empty

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21 July 2020 · Follow on Stagedoor

“First seen at the Kiln in 2019, Ishy Din’s play is set in a Northern mini-cab office in the wake of Margaret Thatcher’s death. Here long-time friends Mansha and Raf both work but the latter is the boss which changes the dynamic of the relationship. This may not be the most sophisticated of plays and it is sometimes a might clunky, but it is also very funny and it is quietly moving in the way it explores how people feel they are unheard and unseen and how that fuels resentment.”

Overview

First staged at the Kiln Theatre and Live Theatre, before embarking on a great UK-wide tour in Spring 2019, Ishy Din's Approaching Empty, directed by Pooja Ghai, will stream from 21 July until 4 August. From the writer that brought you Taxi Tales (recently back on BBC iPlayer) and Snookered.

Forget friendship, this is business.

In a scruffy minicab office, Mansha decides it’s time to create his own destiny and offers to buy the business from his lifelong friend Raf.

As the realities of the state of the company slowly unravel, these two best friends must confront the difficulties of going into business with those closest to them.

Set in the North of England in the aftermath of Margaret Thatcher’s death, Approaching Empty is the compelling drama by taxi-driver-turned-playwright Ishy Din (Snookered, Best New Play at Manchester Theatre Awards) that lays bare the everyday struggles of a post-industrial generation of British men.