In Blue Mist, now touring the UK, Jihad, Rashid and Asif are never reduced to a single identity as Muslim men. They tease one another, make mistakes, support each other’s ambitions and occasionally hurt each other. They are vividly realised individuals before they become subjects of a wider political debate.
A large neon sign reading “Chunkyz” glows at the back of the stage. This is Chunkyz Shisha Lounge, the social hub where three friends spend much of their time. Shisha, a water pipe used to smoke flavoured tobacco, has long been part of Middle Eastern and South Asian culture. In Britain, it has become a familiar meeting place for many young Muslims and South Asians—a space to gather with friends, watch football, talk, and simply spend time together. More than somewhere to smoke, a shisha lounge functions as a neighbourhood café or community living room.
Blue Mist opens with a burst of sound, hip-hop music and energetic choreography that immediately pulls the audience into this world. As Jihad, Rashid and Asif appear on stage, we are invited into Chunkyz alongside them. For the three friends, it is far more than a hangout. It is where they share their anxieties, encourage each other’s ambitions, and briefly escape the judgments waiting beyond its doors.
Co-produced by Boundless Theatre and Tamasha, Blue Mist follows Jihad, a British Pakistani aspiring journalist determined to represent his community honestly within a media landscape shaped by prejudice and preconceptions. Written by Mohamed-Zain Dada and directed by Milli Bhatia, the play premiered Upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre in 2023, received an Olivier Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre in 2024, and won Best Stage Production at the Asian Media Awards. The 2026 production tours venues across England from 17 June to 30 July.
The title, Blue Mist, refers to a popular shisha flavour. At the same time, it evokes the blue smoke drifting through Chunkyz and the warmth and familiarity that fill the space. That haze suggests friendship, belonging and the comfort of feeling at home. Yet “mist” also obscures vision. The title hints at the prejudices, media narratives and distorted representations that prevent society from seeing the people behind the smoke.
The gap between how the three friends experience Chunkyz and how wider society perceives it lies at the heart of the play. To Jihad, Rashid and Asif, it is a place of safety and community. To the media and public institutions, however, it is too easily associated with crime, isolation and radicalisation. Through these competing perspectives, Blue Mist reveals that the meaning of a place is never fixed; it is shaped by those who have the power to define it.
Jihad wants to tell the story of his community as it is actually lived. The production company offering him his first major opportunity, however, already knows what kind of story it wants. Although it speaks of seeking an “authentic voice“, authenticity proves conditional. Rather than embracing Jihad’s perspective, his editors reshape his reporting to fit familiar narratives that reinforce existing stereotypes. Even when a community attempts to speak for itself, the media continues to impose a more sensational, more marketable version of its story.
Jihad’s dilemma extends beyond whether he will succeed as a journalist. He is forced to decide how much he is willing to compromise for his career, and whether it is possible to prevent his own community from being filtered through someone else’s perspective. In doing so, Blue Mist asks a larger question: who has the authority to define another person’s story? Who decides what counts as an “authentic voice”, and what happens to minority perspectives once they enter institutions that ultimately control how those voices are edited, framed and heard?
Premiering at the Royal Court in 2023, Blue Mist first found its audience in a theatre renowned for championing new writing. The 2026 revival is currently touring Leeds, Peterborough, London, Birmingham and Leicester. More significantly, the tour is accompanied by a Community Producer programme, inviting young South Asian and Muslim participants in each city to create their own workshops, open-mic events and community activities alongside the production. Rather than simply presenting a finished play, the company seeks to build relationships with the very communities whose experiences the work explores.
For that reason, this tour is more than a revival. Blue Mist criticises the way mainstream media often observes and defines communities from the outside. The tour, by contrast, reverses that relationship. The production travels into local communities, while young participants shape conversations around the play in ways that reflect their own experiences. Audiences are encouraged to reconsider its questions through the lens of their own cities and neighbourhoods. At a time when division and fear continue to generate headlines and public attention, Blue Mist creates space for communities to speak in their own voices.
The partnership behind the production reflects these same values. Based in Croydon, Boundless Theatre works with young people aged 15 to 25, developing projects in which participants become collaborators and creative leaders rather than simply taking part. Tamasha, meanwhile, champions work rooted in the lives and experiences of Global Majority artists, placing collaboration, artistic development and cultural authorship at the centre of its practice.
These principles are deeply embedded in Blue Mist. The play asks not only who has the right to tell a community’s story, but also who controls how that story is shaped, edited and ultimately heard. In that sense, the production’s collaborative process is not separate from its subject matter; it is an extension of it. The question of whether communities can tell their own stories is explored not only within the play itself but also in how the production has been created and shared.
Plays with strong social or political themes can sometimes risk feeling more like lectures or documentaries than works of drama. Blue Mist, however, avoids that trap by refusing to foreground its message. Instead, it welcomes the audience into Chunkyz through infectious music, dynamic choreography, witty dialogue and the playful chemistry of its three central characters. Their jokes, bravado, flirtations and everyday conversations keep the audience laughing, allowing Jihad, Rashid and Asif to emerge not as representatives of a community but as three distinct young men in their twenties.
Only after that emotional connection has been established does the play gradually shift in tone. As Jihad begins to wrestle with how his community should be represented through his work as a journalist, the warmth and humour of the opening scenes give way to increasingly uncomfortable questions. Laughter slowly transforms into tension, exposing betrayal, competing loyalties and the power structures that shape media narratives. Blue Mist allows those questions to emerge organically through its characters and relationships.
This transformation is mirrored in Milli Bhatia’s direction. While the production begins with music, movement and vibrant energy, it increasingly relies on recorded sound, microphones and amplified voices. Speech is no longer simply spoken; it is captured, replayed, edited and reframed. The microphone becomes more than a theatrical device. It symbolises the moment when a person’s voice enters the machinery of the media, where it can be magnified but also altered. As the play progresses, the distance between lived experience and mediated narrative becomes increasingly apparent.
Above all, Blue Mist is most compelling because it places friendship at the centre of its story. Jihad, Rashid and Asif are never reduced to a single identity as Muslim men. They tease one another, make mistakes, support each other’s ambitions and occasionally hurt each other. They are vividly realised individuals before they become subjects of a wider political debate. By allowing audiences to know them as people first, the play exposes how easily complex lives are flattened into simplistic, marketable images by the media. Once we have come to recognise their individuality, the violence of reducing them to stereotypes becomes impossible to ignore.
For tour dates, locations and tickets, visit the Boundless Theatre website.
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