A Young Vic Film
Filmed at the Young Vic, starring local community performer, Tej Obano, Michael Bhim’s monologue explores whether in America it’s safer to be English than to be black.
The Question (South London)
Cast & Creatives
Written by Michael Bhim
Featuring Tej Obano
Director Nancy Medina
Filmmakers Tristan Shepherd & Andrew Muir
Producers Nadia Latif & Imogen Brodie
Executive Producers Kwame Kwei Armah & Despina Tsatsas
Jerwood Assistant Director Floriana Dezou
Runner Patrick Ellis
Michael Bhim is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter who currently works between Los Angeles and the UK. His first play, Distant Violence, produced at the Tricycle Theatre, was nominated for the Meyer Whitworth Award. He’s had productions at the Soho Theatre (Pure Gold, Methuen), Royal Court Theatre, and has also written for Radio (BBC radio 3). For TV in the UK, he has written for (BBC/Leopard films), Sky Television (Acme/Sky TV) & Channel 4. In the US, he developed his own series and pilot which he sold to Miramax television, and wrote on Impulse; a coming of age sci-fi drama for Universal/Youtube Red, directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity). He currently writes on Greg Berlanti’s (Riverdale/Legends of Tomorrow) critically-acclaimed television series All American, which confronts race and class through the world of American football. For film, he has two feature adaptations in development. Michael continues to guest lecture in playwriting, and works extensively with prison inmates, with a keen interest on marginalised voices.
Tej Obano is a young actor from south-east London. Following his graduation from the University of Nottingham in 2015, where he studied Sociology and Social Policy, he decided to pursue acting. Earlier this year he filmed EASTENDERS and MIMESIS: AFRICAN SOLDIER which can be seen at the Imperial War Musuem. He is also performing in THE JUMPER FACTORY at the Young Vic in February 2019.
Nancy Medina is originally from Brooklyn NY, and currently based in Bristol. She is the 2018 RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award winner and will be collaborating with Royal & Derngate and English Touring Theatre on a production in 2019. In 2017 she was the Genesis Future Director at the Young Vic. She is an acting tutor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and Course Leader for a post 16 Professional Acting Diploma at Boomsatsuma. Directing credits include: Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties (Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama); When They Go Low (NT Connections/Sherman Theatre); Yellowman (Young Vic); Romeo and Juliet, As You Like it (GB Theatre); Curried Goat and Fish Fingers (Bristol Old Vic); Dogtag (Theatre West); Strawberry & Chocolate (Tobacco Factory Theatres); Dutchman (Tobacco Factory Theatres); Persistence of Memory (Rondo Theatre).
