Khameleon productions presents a lady in the sheets by zad el-bacha and simran uppal
5th week//pilch//mt17

‘And then he just wants to make love. Doesn’t care at all if I’m not in the mood, if I don’t feel like it. Always ready! That’s how he wants me, ready at the push of a button. I’m the Nespresso machine of the sex world.’

Lady in the Sheets is a short, sweet, hilarious tragicomedy, a new piece of physical theatre and feminist comedy. Centring the voices, lives and humour of women of colour, it celebrates and grieves the beautiful and bitter ways people (try to) make happy lives out of violence and oppression. It’s about sex and laughter, sighing and breathing, living and joking and trying to carve out something for yourself even when everything else is out of control.

Four women co-exist in a block of flats: Sita (Jeevan Ravindran) is trapped in domestic ‘bliss’ by a swarm of men, Fatima (Taiwo Ava Oyebola) cares for her baby by a husband she doesn’t particularly dislike, while the 85-year-old Auntie-ji (Charithra Chandan) battles her carer, Flora (Esme Sanders) in a confused but well-intentioned culture clash: ‘Arre yaar, beti, just find yourself a nice girl and settle down already!’ 

Drawing on the under-performed political theatre of Franca Rame, the classic British Asian sketch show ‘Goodness Gracious Me’ and the cast and writers’ own experiences, the four women’s lives interweave and crumble and flourish in storytelling, emotive physical theatre, song and comedy.