Manchester United

“Our play grew from a bird’s eye view of India,” says Nayantara Roy,25,director of Dirty Talk. “When I visited Manchester,what I began to see of India from afar both appalled me and made me proud.” The play was staged in Mumbai last week and will travel to Delhi later this year .

Dirty Talk is about a young Indian scientist who returns from England,rich from an invention that has touched the hearts and lives of millions. “The capitalists love it,so do the communists. The feminists adore him and the socialites can’t stop giggling. He’s a rockstar and poster boy who’s got your mother,your maid,your media and your maniacs rooting for him,” says Roy. “It is five days to election day and our man is on the verge of seriously upsetting the local strongmen of Mumbai city.” That’s when the strongmen get active and dirty talk begins. Is it a comment on Indian politics? No,says Roy,the play is more about the arts and censorship. “The audience might even laugh a little,” she says.

Roy might have seen India anew,but that is nothing compared to what Kyle Walker of 10p Mix Up faced when he arrived in Mumbai to meet Roy’s group. “It was a big culture shock,he was quite overwhelmed,” says Holly Ball,project manager of the Manchester group. Roy empathises with Walker: “There are four people for every square foot in Mumbai while in Manchester every person has 10 sq ft to oneself,” she says. Based on Kyle’s inputs,the 50-minute play The Lost Lizard became a fantastical array of colour and sound. “The fictitious land in which our mythical Lizard Boy gets lost is a meeting ground of Manchester and Mumbai called Mancbai. Think the hustle-bustle of Manchester as well as its famous pasty fruit,and combine that with the exoticism of Mumbai and you’ve got Mancbai,” says Holly. The play revolves around a circus that abandons Lizard Boy,setting him off on a quest during which he befriends a mouse and finally finds love with the Lizard Girl.