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British South Asian Theatre, Film, and Television

Module description

The range of theatre, film, and television productions made by and about British South Asians over the past forty years reflect a changing Britain, with shifts in representation and visibility of members of the British South Asian diaspora communities. Themes of migration, cultural and funding policy, race and racialisation, and identity and intersectionality all become key in looking at a selection of productions, writers, directors, companies, and actors. The interrelationship between theatre, television, and film is important in this history, and the module will draw on theories from performance studies, media studies and cultural studies to explore this. 

Module aims - intentions of the module

The module aims are:

• To gain an understanding of the histories of South Asian communities in Britain from the 1960s, and different forms of cultural production that reflect the changing position and representation of these communities;
• To study key examples of theatre, film, and television productions made by British South Asians;
• To understand the relationship of these productions to issues and theories including migration, diaspora, post-colonialism, globalisation, culture, race and racialisation, and issues relating to the cultural industries.
• To develop interdisciplinary knowledge, critical thinking and analysis, and presentation skills.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate the ability to connect history and culture to the changing development of theatre, film, and television productions made by British South Asians
• 2. Demonstrate the ability in discussion and debate as well as critical writing to discuss complex and sensitive issues in relation to cultural production.
• 3. Demonstrate the ability to engage critically and analytically with productions across theatre, film, and television, and the relationship between them, using theories from performance, media, and cultural studies.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. Demonstrate the ability to engage critically and analytically from different theoretic perspectives, to explore theoretical concerns through practice, and vice versa, and to synthesise findings in practical and written tasks, to interpret research into physical practice and vice versa.
• 5. Demonstrate the ability to contribute research to small groups in effective presentations, to evaluate visual evidence and to develop advanced confidence in the ability to analyse, critique and manipulate complex material.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. Develop advanced personal research skills using personal initiative; to set personal objectives that are linked to a sense of challenge and extending boundaries and to identify and evaluate personal learning strategies that are self-critical as much as self-reflective.
• 7. Develop group cooperation skills, including the ability to give and receive constructive critical feedback, and to improve communication skills and advanced analytic abilities in discussions.
• 8. Develop advanced confidence in performance skills and public presentation, in a variety of situations and/or with a variety of audiences, both of dramatic practice and researched material.

Syllabus plan

While the content of the module will vary year by year, examples of areas of focus are:

• early histories and representations (1960s and 1970s)
• adaptation and aesthetics in theatre
• new writing in theatre
• women on stage and screen
• queer Asians
• comedy and Bollywoodisation
• British South Asians in the 21^st century
• industry-related issues (casting, funding, etc)

Each week will focus on a specific issue with one or two productions to be viewed/read in advance for discussion, along with related academic reading. 

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Indicative Reading:

• Ali, N., Kalra, VS. and Sayyid, S. (ed.) A Postcolonial People: South Asians in Britain, London: Hurst and Company
• Bhabha, H. (1994) The Location of Culture, London and New York: Routledge
• Buonanno, G., Sams, V. and Schlote, C. (2011) ‘Glocal Routes in British Asian Drama: Between Adaptation and Tradaptation’, in Postcolonial Text, Vol 6, No 2, pp 1-18
• Chacko, M (2010) ‘Bend It Like Beckham: Dribbling the Self Through a Cross-Cultural Space’, in Multicultural Perspectives, 12 (2), pp 81–86
• Chatterji, J. and Washbrook, D. (ed.) (2013) Routledge Handbook of South Asian Diaspora, Oxford and London: Routledge
• Daboo, J. (2018) Staging British South Asian Culture: Bollywood and Bhangra in British Theatre, Oxford and London: Routledge
• Daboo, J. (2005) ‘One Under the Sun: Globalisation, Utopia and Culture in Bombay Dreams’, in Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol 15, no 3, pp 330 – 337
• Desai, J. (2004) Beyond Bollywood: the cultural politics of South Asian Diasporic Film, New York and London: Routledge
• Dyer, R. (1993) The Matter of Images: Essays on Representation. London: Routledge
• Emig, R. (2010) ‘The Empire Tickles Back: Hybrid Humour (and Its Problems) in Contemporary Asian-British Comedy’, in Dunphy, G. and Emig, R. (ed.) Hybrid Humour: comedy in transcultural perspectives, Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, pp 169-189)
• Gopinath, G. (2005) Impossible Desires: queer diasporas and South Asian public cultures, Durham: Duke University Press
• Hall, S. (1990) ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora,’ in Rutherford, J. (ed.) Identity, Community, Cultural Difference, London: Lawrence and Wishart
• Hingorani, D. (2010) British Asian Theatre: Dramaturgy, Process and Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010
• Huq, R. (2013) ‘Situating Citizen Khan: shifting representations of Asians onscreen and the outrage industry in the social media age’, in South Asian Popular Culture, vol 11, no 1, pp 77-83
• Ley, G. and Dadswell, S. (2011) British South Asian Theatres: a documented history, Exeter: University of Exeter Press
• Ley, G. and Dadswell, S. (2012) Critical Essays on British South Asian Theatre, Exeter: University of Exeter Press
• Malik, S. (2002) Representing Black Britain: Black and Asian images on television, Sage: London
• May, C. (2010) ‘What's love got to do with it?: (Un)bending identities and conventions in Gurinder Chadha's Bend it Like Beckham’, in Culture and Religion: AnInterdisciplinary Journal, Vol 11, no 3, pp 247–276
• Rushdie, S. (1991) Imaginary Homelands: Essays and criticism 1981-1991, London: Granta Books.
• Said, E. (1978) Orientalism, New York: Pantheon
• Werbner, P. (2004) ‘Theorising complex diasporas: Purity and hybridity in the South Asian public sphere in Britain’, in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 30 (5), pp 895–911

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE: 

Key words search

British South Asian; theatre; film; television