EDINBURGH 2023: RAMALAMA DING DONG Q&A

BWW catches up with Roshi Nasehi to chat about bringing Ramalama Ding Dong to the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Tell us a bit about Ramalama Ding Dong

Ramalama Ding Dong came about after a bizarre racist encounter in 2017. I had just performed a music set at the Leigh folk festival in Essex and on the train back to London a drunk stranger literally started sneering the phrase “ramalama/shamalama/ramadama ding dong” at me after hearing me briefly speak Farsi to my family. I posted about the incident on Facebook. To my surprise lots of friends urged me to report it as a hate crime. Essex police confirmed that it was part of a general rise in racist hate crime since the Brexit referendum result in 2016. The officer handling my case proposed that I keep sharing my experience in person and online.

So, I did start to recount the story. Being a performer, I found myself adopting a stand-up style of delivery, drawing on my experience as a sound artist and musician; using vocal processing technology to create a multitude of effects. I also added further accounts of real-life racism, because while racism is obviously no laughing matter it can be risible, surreal and even darkly funny. I started performing this material at open mics and got a really positive response. People compared me to Stewart Lee, Hannah Gadsby and Meredith Monk – all artists that I consider personal heroes! This spurred me on to develop a full-length piece. Now, with the help of an ACE project grant, rehearsal space from Camden People’s Theatre and a wonderful creative team, I seem to have created this multi-media, meta-comic show!

I am delighted to be bringing it to Summerhall as part of the Edinburgh Fringe in early August and still can’t quite believe that what started out as a playful comic experiment has turned into a full-length, tour-ready piece.

What makes the presentation of the piece so integral to the story?

The show plays with stand-up as a format, but also draws on my experience as a musician and sound artist. Notions of how language can be weaponised are really at the heart of it. The real-life stories range from the preposterously funny to the bittersweet – like a queasy encounter with a ridiculous 1970s comedy duo, or my hazy recollections of a teenage trip to Tehran, all complimented by beautiful animated films from my visual designer Al Orange. I also included recorded conversations with my childhood friend, the actor and film director Peter Stray. We reflect on how our friendship developed, despite members of the far-right BNP trying to brainwash our classmates outside our school in Swansea.

With such a personal show, how are you planning to take care of yourself during the festival?

Having made the show and previewed it a handful of times it now genuinely feels cathartic to perform it live. Also, for the most part, it’s a deliberately funny, humane, entertaining show that ends on a high! But admittedly the process of making the show was more triggering and I was aware that my wonderful creative team all had lived experience of being “othered” in some way. We were all conscious of this and agreed to have supported discussions and ‘‘timeouts” if we needed them. My music consultant, avant turnatablist Mariam Rezaei and my director, artist polymath Peyvand Sadeghian are also British-Iranian. Mariam will be at the Fringe with the dance piece Sketches/Glisk for which she is the composer. Peyvand is also bringing her intricate semi-autobiographical one-woman show, Dual, for which I am sound designer and composer. I wanted to work with people that are genuine collaborators and who could relate to the themes of the show. I needed my director especially to be someone I could connect with and feel safe with and Peyvand fitted that role perfectly. It definitely helped me to have that empathic relationship as the piece developed.

Who would you like to come and see it?

It has been very heartening when people from Iranian and other diaspora communities have come to see the show, and followed up with such positive feedback about how funny and relatable they’ve found it. There have also been big student contingents at the Camden People’s Theatre shows, which was lovely. Even though much of the story takes place in the 1990s, and even before, they really “got it” and seemed to really enjoy it. But it is equally important for me that people who aren’t personally affected by everyday racism see it too. The show has been compared several times to the work of Stewart Lee, which is a massive compliment for me and I think if you do like surreal, riff-based, though-provoking comedy, which plays with stand-up as a format then you might like my show.

What would you like audiences to take away from it?

First of all, I want them to laugh a lot! I really want to stress this. Ramalama Ding Dong may have serious themes but I think my team and I have managed to address them in a playful and self-ironic way, not in a way that is sombre and didactic. Yes, I want the audience to come on a bit of a journey with me, and to think about how language can alienate and divide us. But mostly I want this show to connect with people, to uplift and entertain them. Shared laughter is a form of empathy. Humour is healing.

Ramalama Ding Dong will be at Summerhall from Wednesday Aug 2nd until Sunday Aug 13th

Relaxed Performance: 7th & 8th August 2023

Time: 21:55 (60 mins)

Age: 14+

https://festival23.summerhall.co.uk/events/ramalama-ding-dong/

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