Caroline Langrishe, Sara Bahadori & More Join Arcola Theatre's THE NIGHTMARES OF CARLOS FUENTES

The full cast for The Nightmares of Carlos Fuentes are Caroline Langrishe (Lydia King), Sara Bahadori (Case Worker/Sahar Husain) and Selva Rasalingam (Kevin/Khaled Al Hamrani) who join the previously announced Nabil Elouahabi (Carlos Fuentes).

Rashid Razaq's new play, The Nightmares of Carlos Fuentes, is based on an award-winning short story by Hassan Blasim. It is directed by Nicolas Kent, who was Artistic Director of the Tricycle Theatre from 1984-2012. Design is by Ellan Parry, lighting by Matt Eagland and sound by Andy Graham. Executive producers are PW Productions & The Heritage Arts Company.

Salim, an Iraqi refugee, takes on a new identity (Carlos Fuentes) in London after fleeing persecution in Baghdad. He is picked up, and marries a wealthy older woman, who enthusiastically coaches him in the bedroom for his forthcoming citizenship test. But Carlos Fuentes finds that knowing the names of all six of Henry VIII's wives can neither satisfy his new wife nor turn him into a "Britishman". The nightmare of the violence of his past catches up with him, and suddenly he is at the airport, accompanied by a G4 security guard, waiting for a plane to take him back to Baghdad.

Sara Bahadori's theatre credits include The Worm Collector at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Soul Destroying Finger Food at The Old Red Lion, and Click at Riverside Studios. Her screen credits include Coronation Street, Waterloo Road, The Royal Today, and Doctors.

Caroline Langrishe's theatre credits include The Memory of Water at the New Vic Theatre/ Stephen Joseph Theatre, The Handyman at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre/national tour, Country at the Southwark Playhouse, Hay Fever at the Chichester Festival Theatre, Tons of Money on national tour, Private Lives at the Windsor Theatre Royal, Marrying the Mistress on a national tour, Murderer at the Menier Chocolate Factory, The Way of the World at the Manchester Royal Exchange, Our Song on national tour, An Ideal Husband on national tour, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore at the Young Vic Theatre, Twelfth Night at the Riverside Studios, Present Laughter at the Wyndham's Theatre, Private Lives and Talk of The Devil at the Watford Palace Theatre, The Philanderer at the Hampstead Theatre, The Knickers at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith and A Month in the Country, Don Juan, Much Ado about Nothing, and Danton's Death at the National Theatre. Caroline is best known on screen for roles including Charlotte Cavendish in Lovejoy, Georgina Channing in Judge John Deed and Marilyn Fox in Casualty. Her other screen credits include Death in Paradise, The Case, Outnumbered, Pete Versus Life, Midsomer Murders, Wuthering Heights, Anna Karenina, The Glittering Prizes, Plastic, Love's Kitchen, Second Son, Bonobo, David Rose, Memorablis, Kisna, Rogue Trader, Newborn, Parting Shots, Crimetime, Twelfth Night, Hawks, Cleopatra, Dead Man's Folly, A Christmas Carol, Les Miserables, Mistral's Daughter Death Watch, and The Eagle's Wing.

Selva Rasalingam's theatre credits include the award winning production The Riots at the Tricycle Theatre, Eden's Empire at the Finborough Theatre, Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom at the New Ambassadors Theatre/Tricycle Theatre, and Midnight's Children for the RSC/US Tour. Selva's screen credits include Skyfall, Man About Dog, Anita and Me, Casualty, Doctor Who, The Borgias, Hustle, Luther, Coronation Street, Waking the Dead, The Bill and Bad Girls.

Nabil Elouahabi's theatre credits include Love Your Soldiers at the Sheffield Crucible, The Great Game: Afghanistan for the Tricycle Theatre/US Tour, Crossing Jerusalem also at the Tricycle and Sparkleshark at the National Theatre. His television credits include Fox's Emmy Award winning drama 24, starring Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer, the BAFTA award winning drama Top Boy Series II for Channel 4, Generation Kill for HBO, The Path to 9/11 for ABC, Mad Dogs on SKY and he is well known for his role as Tariq in the BBC's EastEnders. His film credits include Zero Dark Thirty, Code 46, In This World, Ali G Indahouse and The Sum of All Fears. The Nightmares of Carlos Fuentes will be Nabil's first co-production, with further projects in development.

Nicolas Kent started his career at Liverpool Playhouse in 1967 as an ABC TV trainee regional theatre director. In 1970 he became Artistic Director of the Watermill Theatre, from 1970-72 Associate Director of the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh and from 1976-81 Administrative Director of The Oxford Playhouse Company. From 1984-2012 he was Artistic Director of the Tricycle Theatre in London.

He has directed productions in over 100 theatres around the world including the West End and New York; as well as for notable companies in Great Britain including The National Theatre, The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Royal Court, The Donmar Warehouse, The Hampstead Theatre, the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith and the Young Vic.

He is probably best known for the political work he did at Tricycle Theatre, where the verbatim plays he directed became known as the Tricycle Tribunal plays, and included The Colour of Justice (the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry), Nuremberg, Srebrenica, Bloody Sunday and Guantanamo. Most of which were broadcast by the BBC and two were performed in the Houses of Parliament and on Capitol Hill. More recently The Great Game: Afghanistan enjoyed a critically acclaimed run at the Tricycle Theatre, including a special performance presented to the previous Chief of Defense Staff, General Sir David Richards and members of the British Army. The Great Game then toured over the US and was also presented to the Pentagon, Washington DC.

Nicolas has also directed many plays in the USA, both regionally and in New York, on television for the BBC and for BBC radio. Recently he directed Letter of Last Resort from The Bomb series of plays, which premiered at the Tricycle Theatre, for BBC Radio 4, and his translation of Jean-Claude Grumberg's I just don't Believe It with Michael Gambon and Frances de la Tour at last year's Cheltenham Literary Festival.

Rashid Razaq is a playwright, screenwriter and journalist. His debut play The President and The Pakistani (directed by Tom Attenborough), based on the real-life story of Barack Obama and his illegal immigrant flatmate opened at the Waterloo East Theatre in run-up to the US presidential election in 2012. Rashid's short play Arab Spring (starring Nabil Elouahabi) was performed at the Nursery Festival in 2011 and was featured on BBC Arabic Service. His short play, Hardcore, was selected for a best of programme at the 503 Theatre. He is a graduate of the Royal Court Theatre's Young Writers' Programme.

Rashid wrote Man and Boy (starring Eddie Marsan), which won Best Short at the Tribeca Film Festival 2011 and a top prize at the Aspen Film Festival. His previous short film Father (starring Sam Spruell and Matt King) was selected for festivals in the UK and internationally. He has co-written the forthcoming feature film Orthodox (starring Stephen Graham) about an Orthodox Jewish boxer and has another feature film in development.

Rashid works as a reporter for the London Evening Standard covering subjects including crime, arts and politics.

Hassan Blasim originally trained as a filmmaker but was forced to flee his home city, Baghdad, in 1999 when his films were identified as dangerous critiques of the Saddam Hussein regime. He moved to Kurdistan (Northern Iraq) where he continued to make films under a pseudonym for several years before eventually leaving Iraq completely and traveling, as an illegal migrant, across Europe, eventually arriving in Finland, where he now lives. His first collection of short stories, The Madman of Freedom Square, was commissioned by Manchester's Comma Press and published in English first in 2009 (it has since been published in half a dozen languages). His second collection, The Iraqi Christ, has just won the 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. He is the winner of two English PEN Writers in Translation awards.

The Nightmare of Carlos Fuentes is supported by ACE, Backstage Trust, John S Cohen Foundation and the Potter Foundation.

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