"we continue to fight for representation, equality"
An exhibition and events programme exploring the history of Black and Asian theatre in Britain will mark 50 years since Naseem Khan’s influential report, The Arts Britain Ignores.
Titled Radical Rediscovery III: What Survives? 50 Years Since The Arts Britain Ignores, the programme is organised by Unfinished Histories and hosted by London Performance Studios.
It brings together archival materials, performances and discussions highlighting the artists and organisations that transformed British theatre despite limited support from established arts institutions.
Running from November 12 to December 12, 2026, the programme celebrates grassroots theatre, community activism, young people’s performances and carnival culture, examining their lasting influence on British arts and cultural life.
The exhibition features original archival materials spanning the 1960s to 2000, including photography by Sheila Burnett, filmed oral history interviews and historic carnival costumes.
These materials document the networks, campaigns and individuals who challenged exclusion and created opportunities for Black and Asian artists.
A symposium on November 27-28 will explore the report’s legacy through talks, panel discussions and a long table. Participants will consider what has changed over the past 50 years, what barriers remain and where cultural power sits today.
Speakers include Booker Prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo and actor Shreela Ghosh.
Ghosh is best known for playing Naima, the first South Asian character in BBC’s EastEnders, and for her leadership roles within cultural organisations.
On November 27, actor, playwright and theatre director Sudha Bhuchar will direct The Woman, the Writer, the Legacy, a special evening of readings and performances celebrating Khan’s life and work.
Bhuchar co-founded Tamasha Theatre Company in 1989 and served as Co-Artistic Director until 2015. She subsequently established Bhuchar Boulevard to develop and produce new creative work.
The programme will conclude on December 11-12 with a triple bill of intimate staged readings featuring forgotten or unpublished one-person plays written between the 1970s and 1990s.
Slipping Into Darkness by Jamal Ali is a monologue about a Black Londoner, while Madhuri, I Love You by Parminder Sekhon follows 13-year-old Amarjit as she escapes daily life in Preston through a dream world featuring Bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit.
The third play, One of Us, was written by Jacqui Shapiro from a series of 1983 improvisations by BAFTA-winning actress Meera Syal. It follows Nishi, a young Asian woman pursuing her dream of becoming an actress while working as a roller-skating waitress in her family’s shop.
Casting for the staged readings will be confirmed in the coming weeks.
Suman Bhuchar, Guest Curator, said: “It is an honour to be part of the Unfinished Histories FYFFI3 Programme as its values align completely with Bhuchar Boulevard’s Retracing Our Footsteps strand of work.
“I have huge admiration for the tenacity and passion of Susan Croft and her team and see her as a fellow traveller in what can be a lonely road to make archives visible and accessible to a wider community.
“The programme provides a unique opportunity to trace the rich history of British South Asian and Black Theatre performance work, the practitioners and the stories.
“As intergenerational global majority creatives, we continue to fight for representation, equality and decolonising the theatre space.
“It is also timely to remember the contribution and legacy of Naseem Khan, a cultural trailblazer on the fight for inclusion, through her seminal report, The Arts Britain Ignores; as well as her work as a journalist, consultant and arts administrator.
“I was lucky enough to be part of her ALAAP (Asian Leisure & Arts Planners) group – South Asian women from the creative industries who undertook consultancies and wrote reports on the creative sector.
“I am passionate to share my lived experience alongside my peers and open the doors to the collective knowledge and physical artefacts and memorabilia that we all have so that we can continue to co-create a cohesive and multi-layered history (albeit unfinished).”
Tyrone Huggins, Guest Curator, said: “It is important that we bring to the surface the range and depth of work created by Black and Asian artists and practitioners, in order for British culture to understand itself and how it’s changed and develop a new canon of works that tell us of our past and informs our journeys into the future.
“It is an important privilege and responsibility to me to work with Unfinished Histories in that enterprise.”
Naseem Khan, who lived from 1939 to 2017, was a journalist, activist, cultural historian and educator.
Commissioned by the Community Relations Commission, the Arts Council of Great Britain and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, her 1976 report was the first major study to document grassroots arts and cultural practices within Black and Asian communities and other immigrant groups in the UK.
The report challenged arts institutions, funding bodies and critics over their failure to recognise these communities, calling on them to confront the exclusion and marginalisation of their work.
Earlier in October 2026, Dawn Airey, the new chair of Arts Council England, delivered her inaugural speech at a conference celebrating Khan’s work and legacy at the Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage in Leicester.
Unfinished Histories was founded in 2006 by Susan Croft and Jessica Higgs before becoming an independent organisation in 2012.
It preserves and celebrates Britain’s alternative theatre history, particularly work from the 1960s to the 1980s, through interviews, archival research, exhibitions, symposiums, workshops, walking tours and staged readings.
Its work highlights the contributions of marginalised communities, including Black, Asian, disabled and LGBTQ+ communities, women and politically engaged theatre groups, ensuring their influence on British theatre is recognised.
The programme forms the concluding year of Fifty Years of the Fight for Inclusion III: Black & Asian Theatre in Britain, a three-year research and presentation project hosted by London Performance Studios.
The project commemorates the anniversaries of three significant moments in theatre history, following celebrations of the first Women’s Theatre in Britain in 2024 and the first Gay Theatre Festival in Britain in 2025.
