Playwright Asif Khan: ‘When people think about theatre, they think white people and Shakespeare'

The Guardian

22-04-2025

Asif Khan first heard about Lena, Maysa and Ameya – the three Muslim skateboarding sisters from Hull who became social media stars in 2022 with their skills – from his mother-in-law. 'She does this a lot. She'll send me an article and say: 'You could write a play about this,'' laughs Khan. But there was something about this particular story that piqued his interest. 'They all wore the hijab, lived with their mum and had an Instagram account where they did their own raps and filmed skateboarding tricks … I immediately thought: Oh OK, this is a good premise for a play.'
So, he set about adapting it for the stage. He contacted the girls' parents and had a 'good, long hour's chat'. 'They were excited that someone was interested in doing a play about them,' says Khan, 44, who also works as an actor. The result of those chats is Sisters 360, a play about two Bradford-based hijab-wearing, skateboarding stepsisters, Fatima and Salima, aimed at audiences between the ages of eight and 12.
This is not the first time Khan has written for children. His 2021 play Jabala and the Jinn tells the story of a girl coming to terms with the loss of her mother, while his first play for adults, Combustion, earned him an Asian Media award for best stage production. Sisters 360 is slightly different from Lena, Maysa and Ameya's reality. 'It is inspired by them, but the story is completely made up,' says Khan. To 'represent a diversity of Muslims', Khan reimagined the girls as stepsisters from different cultural backgrounds; Fatima is British Somali, while Salima is British Pakistani. But, despite not being blood relatives, they unquestionably see themselves as best friends and family. 'They absolutely feel like real sisters,' says Khan.
Together, Fatima and Salima play with their favourite toys, Batgirl and Batman; obsess over their favourite Olympic medallist, Hope Black – inspired by the real-life Olympian Sky Brown – and, most importantly, skateboard. When Sisters 360 begins, they're preparing for the big competition, Tiny Is Mighty. But as tensions rise between their parents over Fatima's mum relocating from Bradford to London for work, their close-knit world starts to unravel.
The script deals with big themes and emotions; there are separations, changing friendships and cultural identities. How does he make his work suitable for an audience full of children? 'I think we underestimate kids sometimes,' he says. 'They can watch things that are engaging and entertaining but also have a certain level of meaning about our lives and what we go through as humans.'
Khan's play is certainly not all gloom, though. On stage, Fatima and Salima – played in this production by Sara Abanur and Farah Ashraf – share their different languages and cultural traditions. Dressed in colourful patterns, hats and knee pads, the girls come alive in each other's company. Skateboarding is at the core of their friendship. They spend hours at the skate park, practising and perfecting tricks. 'It's not what people associate in their minds with Muslim girls,' Khan says.
'Skateboarding is generally seen as more of a boys' thing,' he continues. 'It breaks down those stereotypes of girls taking part in the sport.' Khan likes to think of the skateboard as 'another limb' that you hand trust over to. 'You have to be really brave, it is not something I could do,' he admits. 'It's a sport but there's also an artistic element to it. It gives people the space to express their individuality and represent themselves.'
Certainly, this is true of Fatima and Salima in Sisters 360. When I see it during its run at Wimbledon's Polka theatre, I'm struck by how different it feels to other plays for children I've seen; I don't think I've seen another where young Muslim girls and their everyday experiences are so central. Khan agrees that it is still rare to find Muslim stories on the British stage. 'I've had people comment that this is a very 'unusual' play and I think that's a strange way to frame it,' he says. 'It's true we don't often see Muslim girls on the stage, but there's nothing unusual about it.'
Khan is also keen that people see the play is about much more than a Muslim story: 'This play is just about two 10-year-old British girls who have a dream and want to achieve it; the Muslim part is not really the important bit,' he says. Particularly at the moment, when Islamophobia is at a record high in the UK, Khan thinks it is more important than ever for his community to be represented accurately. 'I think the whole Muslim community feels very isolated … I feel like we're always the villains.
'It is tiresome and very, very hard to be a Muslim person in the UK right now,' he continues. But writing Sisters 360 brought him 'a bit of joy'. Theatre, he believes, has a unique power to tell stories; 'it is a really powerful medium'. Khan fell in love with drama during his childhood in Bradford. He was 15 when he knocked on the door of Theatre in the Mill on the University of Bradford's campus and met its then artistic director, Andrew Loretto, for the first time. 'Everything I know is from there,' Khan explains. 'Once I got involved I learned more and more doors opened.' He later went on to get a place at Rada.
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Now, Khan likes to pay homage to Bradford in his work. 'It's my home town, I lived there until I was 25. People normally have a misconception about it but it is a beautiful, friendly place.' Every time he begins writing a new script, Khan imagines his characters as being from Bradford, or at least having some connection to the city. 'It's the place I know best, I know the people really well.'
Bradford is UK City of Culture in 2025, but Khan still thinks that his community are not traditionally a theatre-going audience. 'It's one of the things I want to change,' he says. 'When people think about theatre, they think white, middle-class people watching Shakespeare … once they see two 10-year-olds from Bradford, wearing hijabs, that might change.'
Young people are the start of forming this new pattern. 'If they enjoy coming, they'll come back,' says Khan. 'They should have the question in their head: shall we go to the cinema or should we go to the theatre?' Things are starting to change, but slowly, and Khan still thinks theatres are afraid of taking risks when it comes to programming work about Islam. '[They'd rather] find safer stories which no one will find controversial in any way.'
As a writer, he sometimes feels the burden of trying to represent everyone, he admits. But, ultimately, Khan wants Muslims to be reflected in all their complexity and variety. 'I want to be able to write about my community honestly and truthfully, the good and the bad sides,' he says. 'I want to challenge them as well.' And Sisters 360 is only the beginning: 'My head is bursting with ideas, I just want to put them on the stage.'
Sisters 360 is at Leeds Playhouse, 7 to 10 May.