In 2023, Karim Khan’s award-winning play, Brown Boys Swim, premiered at The North Wall and went on to have successful runs at the Edinburgh Fringe and the Soho Theatre in London’s West End. It is currently being adapted for TV. At present, the Oxford ‘born and bred’ playwright and screenwriter is on attachment with The Royal Court Theatre and the National Theatre, and his career to date has also seen him excel in several writers rooms for a variety of screen productions. This December his latest work, Before the Millennium, will premiere at The Old Fire Station and we were eager to learn more about the city’s new laureate of theatre.
Can you tell us about your new play, Before the Millennium?
Of course, it's a warm, festive show for Christmas. For me, it's an opportunity to tell a really special story about a warm friendship between two women, forged in Woolworths in the 1990s. It feels like a nostalgic offering, taking us back to a time that no longer exists in many ways, and it explores themes around homesickness, migration and the joys of friendship.
How does being commissioned work? Do they say, Karim we need you to write our December show, or are they more specific on the issues they want you to cover?
So, The Old Fire Station’s Christmas show has become a bit of a tradition: they've been doing one for about seven years. They've commissioned writers like Mike Bartlett, Chris Bush, Johnny Donahue, and they have a clear brief about what a Christmas show is for them – something which is different to a family Christmas show or a pantomime, so essentially like any other play, or piece of new writing, but framed within Christmas. That can then lean into why Christmas is a difficult time for a lot of people – especially because The Old Fire Station shares their building with Crisis and that time of the year is their busiest time in a lot of ways.
For me, it was such a special and unique offering to be able to write a show that dips into the melancholy of Christmas as well as the joy.
What led to you to a writing career?
I was born and brought up in Oxford, and I've always been very creative. When I was younger, I did classes at Film Oxford, and I learned a lot about filmmaking. Then, I became interested in theatre and writing and when I went to university to study English, I started writing plays.
I knew I wanted to do something creative, and I knew it was either directing or writing. I did Screenwriting at the National Film and Television School for two years, and that led to my screen career of developing TV projects and writing on TV shows. I'd also been writing issue-based plays for schools [for Pegasus theatre and also with Derby theatre] but Brown Boys Swim was my first official play to be commissioned [by the North Wall].
It sounds like you were able to find a lot of local support.
Yeah, definitely. With Film Oxford I gained so much experience. At that time they used to hold a festival every year during the summer for young people to do filmmaking things. I was thinking a lot about how that represents a different time politically: I'm not sure how much funding is there for Film Oxford to do those things for young people now. I also did a lot of stuff with the Oxfordshire County Council who ran a lot of things which involved young people in political decision making for their services. I was heavily involved with the Oxford Youth Parliament. A lot of those services no longer exist but and they formed a huge part of my childhood and my teenage years.
In terms of theatre, I owe a lot to Pegasus. What they do for their young company is really great and much needed. And then I've got so much love for the North Wall. They're such an incredible theatre. I did their Catalyst program where they bring together writers, directors and actors for two weeks to make plays together. That’s how I got to know them, and how they got to know me, before they commissioned me to write Brown Boys Swim.
You can have the illusion that that all the theatre opportunities are in London, but there were so many here in Oxford. I do feel grateful for that, but I'm just conscious that comparing my childhood to the children who are growing up now from state school backgrounds, I wonder whether there's enough available for them. I think theatre is cultural capital you either have access to or you don't. And if you don't have access to it, how are you going to get in?
Is the experience of writing for other projects, for television for example, vastly different from writing your own works?
I guess your job as a writer is to be malleable and to adapt someone else's voice but, for example with All Creatures Great and Small, I felt very lucky that even though I was writing someone else's show, I was able to do some of the things that felt very meaningful to me. I was able to put myself into it and that isn't always the case with TV. Sometimes you have to change and modify in order to fit in.
I think there is something uniquely special about plays, though. With Brown Boys Swim, Before the Millennium, and also the play that I'm doing early next year, Sweet Meats, about two South Asian elders in their 60s meeting in a Type Two Diabetes workshop and forging a connection; they all feel like they come from the heart and are very personal to me. They are plays that I'm really proud of, and I'm really excited for audiences to meet them.
In Before the Millennium the main protagonists are female, and in Sweet Meats your characters are older. Do you feel a responsibility when using your words to give voice to others?
I completely hear what you're saying. I think is really interesting, because I've been thinking about this as well. I think it's easier to connect Brown Boys Swim to my experience because it is about young South Asian boys compared to Sweet Meats, which is about two South Asian elders, or Before the Millennium, which is about women in their late 20s who have migrated from Pakistan. But, interestingly, I feel like all three of them to me have equal weighting in how personal and connected I feel to them. I think it is all in the way I write plays: I put myself in all of my characters, and they all have a part of me in them. What really excites me as a writer is being able to tell personal stories through the guise of something that has a different framing.
Having said that, I do feel a responsibility to really honour those stories and the communities I'm talking about. With Before the Millennium, I really want to honour the women who migrated during that time, like my mum and my aunties. In the same way, with the characters in Sweet Meets, I really want to honour those people – like my grandparents.
With that in mind, what's the feedback been like from your family?
With Brown Boys Swim, I was definitely quite nervous about sharing my work and I was very relieved – overjoyed – when I felt they were really happy and proud. That meant a lot to me. It will be interesting to see what happens with Before the Millennium and Sweet Meats; I'll be very intrigued, because I've not really spoken to my mum about it. I want it to be a bit of a surprise.
Finally, how will you be spending Christmas this year?
What am I going to be doing? It’s always family time: having Christmas dinner, eating a lot of chocolates and sweets, watching Christmas TV, and just not thinking about much.
Before the Millennium by Karim Khan is on at The Old Fire Station from 1-21 December. For further information and to book tickets, visit oldfirestation.co.uk.
