Akhtar The Real Ones

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-78850-832-2
Verlag: Nick Hern Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 112 Seiten

Reihe: NHB Modern Plays

Best friends Zaid and Neelam shared a dream: get away, make it as writers, build a future where they're free to be themselves. Together, always. Years later, things are far from what they expected. Zaid's life has kinda stalled - he's half out the closet, living at home and still chasing the dream. While Neelam's has taken a completely different path as she chooses to prioritise her own happiness. As their lives pull further apart, leaving a mess of unsaid things between them, it's going to take something real to bring them back together. Waleed Akhtar's play The Real Ones is a funny and honest love letter to platonic soulmates. It was first performed at the Bush Theatre, London, in 2024, directed by Anthony Simpson-Pike, and starring Nathaniel Curtis and Mariam Haque.

Waleed Akhtar is a writer and actor. His plays include: The Real Ones (Bush Theatre, London, 2024); The P Word (Bush Theatre, 2022); Kabul Goes Pop: Music Television Afghanistan (Brixton House, London, and tour 2022); Sholay on the Big Screen (Bush Theatre, London, 2021); and I Don't Know What To Do (VAULT Festival 2020, Evening Standard Pick of the Fest). His English translation of Alexis Michalik's play The Art of Illusion was staged at Hampstead Theatre in 2022. His short film Lost Paradise was produced by UK Film Council and he has contributed material for BBC Radio 4's Sketchtopia and Newsjack. He was named Most Promising New Playwright at the 2023 OffWestEnd Awards. Author photo by Dan Pick

Autoren/Hrsg.

Akhtar, Waleed

Leseproben

NEELAM. Can you feel anything?

ZAID. Yeah. Yeah. Can you?

NEELAM. Yeah.

ZAID. Yeah!

I love you. Like genuinely I love you.

NEELAM. I love you too.

ZAID. No really, I love the bones of you.

NEELAM. What?

ZAID. I LOVE THE BONES OF YOU.

NEELAM. I love the skin of you.

ZAID. The teeth of you.

NEELAM. The eyes.

ZAID. The ears.

NEELAM. The nose.

You know we’re gonna be fine.

ZAID. We’re gonna be fucking brilliant.

NEELAM

ZAID. I dared you to flash your tits. That’s just your bra.

NEELAM. You mad, bruv. The sight of these bad girls are worth a million each.

ZAID. Rupees? SHOT!

NEELAM

NEELAM. This is lame.

ZAID. No it’s not?

NEELAM. Did not come all this way to play Truth or Dare. You’re not even drinking.

ZAID. I don’t like it.

NEELAM. You’ve only tried it once. Zaid, I beg, don’t be a pussyhole this weekend.

ZAID. I don’t need to drink to have fun.

NEELAM. Stop acting all pious. Literally sat in the toilet of a fucking train to get here.

ZAID. You could have bought a ticket like a normal person.

NEELAM. Fuck that, have you seen how much they cost? You’re so lucky living out at uni. Some of us were forced to stay at home.

ZAID. Living out isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Everyone is so posh.

NEELAM. Everyone at school thought you were hella posh.

ZAID. That’s because no one we went to school with had ever left Ilford.

NEELAM. True. But you escaped Mini-Pakistan.

ZAID. No one cool does computer science.

NEELAM. Join the theatre society.

ZAID. Too cliquey… And none of them are into writing.

NEELAM. I went.

ZAID. Got no motivation, barely keeping up with my course.

NEELAM. You’ll make friends.

ZAID. Mates maybe. Friends, I don’t know, takes me a while.

NEELAM. If they can’t see how great you are, fuck ’em. I’m your people. You know that, right?!

ZAID. Yes. Right, my turn, Truth or Dare.

NEELAM. We still doing this? Already know what you’re gonna say.

ZAID. Truth.

NEELAM. Why? Every time.

ZAID. Then just ask me something you’ve always wanted to ask me?

NEELAM. I don’t know what to ask.

ZAID. Just ask me.

NEELAM. Ask you what, Zaid?

Why don’t you just say what you want to say?

ZAID. I’ve tried. I need you to ask me, might make it easier.

NEELAM. Erm… Tell me something… surprising about you? Something you’ve never told anyone.

ZAID. Right. I feel like there was this moment when I should have told you back in sixth form. When you said no matter what you’d always have my back. But I didn’t. But I should have. Because I think you were hinting.

So you’ve probably guessed and you know already.

NEELAM. Is this what I think you’re saying?

ZAID. What do you think I’m saying?

NEELAM. Well… What if I’m wrong and you’re not saying what I think you’re saying?

ZAID. Just say it.

NEELAM. I can’t be the one to say it.

ZAID. I’m gay.

Well fucking say something.

NEELAM. I said tell me something surprising about you.

ZAID. Fucking cow.

***

NEELAM. Look, I’m here for you.

ZAID. I can’t.

NEELAM. What’s the worst that could happen?

ZAID. I don’t know?

NEELAM. Seriously go on.

ZAID. I’ll go over there and talk to him and he’ll laugh at me or just tell me to fuck off.

NEELAM. And the best that could happen?

ZAID. We fall in love and live happily ever after.

NEELAM. So the reality is somewhere in between both those things.

***

ZAID. Do you think everyone at school knew?

NEELAM. I don’t know.

ZAID. Real talk.

NEELAM. I think people said things.

ZAID. To you?

NEELAM. Not to me, obviously. I would have fucking battered ’em.

ZAID. What kind of things?

NEELAM. It doesn’t matter now. School’s over.

ZAID. Please.

NEELAM. Just that you’d never had a girlfriend and you were a bit… girly.

ZAID. Girly?

NEELAM. You don’t like normal boy shit.

ZAID. Football?

NEELAM. And vaginas.

ZAID.

NEELAM. It’s not a bad thing. Being gay.

ZAID. Not the greatest thing either. And don’t get me started on the religious stuff.

NEELAM. You’re one of the best people I know.

ZAID. What do I do with it?

NEELAM. What do you mean?

ZAID. Do I tell people? My parents would freak. Do I just marry a woman? Don’t want that. Like what the fuck does my life look like?

NEELAM. What does any of our lives look like?

ZAID. Least you know some things, you’ll get married, have kids.

NEELAM. Do I look like I want to become a basic from ends?

ZAID. At least it’s there if you want it.

NEELAM. Look, Zaid, all you can do is take it one day at a time.

***

ZAID. I’m better online.

NEELAM. But you’re here now and he’s been eyeing you up!

ZAID. Not sure he was.

NEELAM. Want me to go up to him?

ZAID. No.

NEELAM. So go, I’ll be right here. GO!

***

ZAID. It feels weird. Having this thing that I held on to, just having it out there.

NEELAM. Chill, bitch. It’s me. Always got your back.

ZAID. And I’ve got yours.

NEELAM. Right, mine’s a truth.

ZAID. We don’t have to play any more.

NEELAM. Yes we do. Ask me about the rumours from sixth form.

ZAID. Are you sure?

NEELAM. I said ask me.

ZAID. Was the gossip about you and Kasim true?

NEELAM. Yes.

ZAID. Right.

NEELAM. Wanted to tell you for time, but it all got so fucked and at that point you were the only friend I had left. Didn’t want to risk it.

ZAID. Sort of guessed you’d slept with him, but I didn’t want to ask. Know what it’s like people saying things about you behind your back.

NEELAM. Real talk. What exactly would people say about me?

ZAID. Seriously, just the stuff you probably know already. I wasn’t popular enough for any of that lot to speak to me. Fuck Kasim for telling everyone.

NEELAM. Said on his mum’s life it wasn’t him.

ZAID. Who else was it?

NEELAM. I told Rehana as well.

ZAID. What?

NEELAM. She was my best mate at the time. She said she told one person just to get some advice and boom everyone knew and nobody was speaking to me.

ZAID. And you believed her?

NEELAM. I don’t know. We stopped talking after that.

ZAID. You were always better than that lot. Rehana is a knob.

NEELAM. Anyway fuck her and fuck school. That was the peak for those losers.

ZAID. Fucking losers.

NEELAM. And I’m still stuck in Ilford with most of them.

ZAID. But you’re nothing like them. We’re going to be famous writers.

NEELAM. Have people read our shit for years to come.

ZAID. While they’ll just remain basic.

NEELAM. Now we’ve got no secrets.

ZAID. Actually, I stole the money from Mrs Cook’s purse, in Year 9. She was a bitch and it was just there.

NEELAM. We got detention for a month and you never said anything?

ZAID. I was in too deep.

***

NEELAM. Well what did he say? You were talking for ages.

ZAID. He was cool. Studying music production, was born in Sheffield. Loves the Arctic Monkeys.

NEELAM. Did you get his number?

ZAID. No.

NEELAM. Why not?

ZAID. He’s straight.

NEELAM. Fucking straights. They’re everywhere.

ZAID. Trust me to hit on the only straight guy here.

NEELAM. You have balls. Fucking went up to someone and chatted them up.

ZAID. Yeah I did it. Should’ve got his number for you?

NEELAM. Not my type… looks gay.

I’m off boys anyway.

ZAID. Me too now.

NEELAM. No, you can do it again.

ZAID. Not tonight. I think I need a drink.

NEELAM. You don’t drink.

ZAID. Good time to give it another go.

NEELAM. Nah. I’ve got something better.

***

NEELAM. No more moping, let’s go out.

ZAID. Don’t think I’m in the mood now.

NEELAM. Come on, Zaid. I’m here and we’re gonna party like an Asian...