You’re walking home around midnight. It’s dark and the streets are deserted. You’re in a foreign country and your senses are on high alert. Suddenly, from nowhere, a stranger lurches from the shadows.
“Got a light?”
Do you stop?
This is the situation that young Pakistani student Ahmed finds himself in when confronted by the unpredictable and ambiguous ‘great white’ Norm, in this performance of Alex Buzo’s sharp, entertaining and satirical 1960’s classic, Norm and Ahmed.
Fifty-three years since its premiere in Melbourne, Alex Buzo’s tense two hander remains alarmingly relevant, confronting issues of racism, xenophobia, female politics, cultural difference and assimilation. Now is the perfect time to discover, or rediscover, this iconic and pioneering piece of Australian theatre.
This season played at Riverside Theatres 15 – 20th November and was live captured for online digital release in 2022.
Content Warnings: coarse language, smoking, hate speech and violence.
“this is an incredible play”
“a play that still demands to be talked about”
”a revelatory production…a fine revival of a great classic’
Cast
Laurence Coy as Norm & Rajan Velu as Ahmed
Creative Team
Aarne Neeme – Production Director
Terence Clarke – Associate Director
Lucia Haddad – Lighting Designer
Emma Paterson – Stage Manager & Production Manager
Grant Dodwell, Peter Hiscock & Raj Sidhu – Producers
Lucy Clements & Emma Wright – Associate Producers
Sean Landis – Publicity
Becky Matthews – Photographer
This project has been made possible with the assistance of Create NSW and the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government initiative.
