Guest Blog: Writer and Actor Saher Shah on Female Representation, Expectations and Visibility in Her New Play VITAMIN D

Vitamin D started as a bunch of scene ideas, thoughts and one-liners of dialogue in my notes app on my phone. It lived there for almost a year, growing every time I had a conversation with someone, saw a post on social media or read an article about the way we speak about, and to women when it came to marital status, and particularly within South Asian and Muslim communities.

I started to recount all the people I knew in my life who were divorced, or had faced emotional abuse within a relationship, whether that be at the hands of their partner or even their own family. It became very obvious to me very quickly that it seemed that there were more than a few common threads to the many examples that I knew of, almost as if they were coming out of the same playbook.

It seemed as though a lot of those threads started with the way that we teach young girls and women, what to expect or "put up with” when they are treated by others. The expectations for women we have in society and where we expect them to (not) use their voice. It was the unsaid and unseen rules and systems that we, as women seemed to be upholding whilst simultaneously, suffering because of them. The suffering seemed to be in isolation, like it was only happening to that one woman and we were all watching it unfold like an awful slow motion car crash that the rest of us couldn’t stop staring at and passing judgement on.

All of these questions and thoughts were building in my notes app as I was also deciding to give my creative career as an actor and a writer a real chance after deciding to shift gears from a career in the sciences. Having never been to drama school, nor having an agent and not knowing anyone in the industry, my ways “in” felt far away, but not something completely out of reach.

Whilst taking part time classes, building my networks and learning what steps I needed to take in order to carve out a real creative career, it became clear to me that although the variety of roles and projects for women who looked like me were growing, at my entry level I was going to struggle to be offered a lead role in a show that showcased a Brown Muslim woman that was written with dignity and respect. So I thought I would write it for myself.

It may sound like I thought it and then it was done, but this journey to our three week run at Soho Theatre’s main space this September has been almost five years in the making. In the world of theatre, that can be seen as a really quick turnaround, but also a long road - depending on who you speak to, and when!

The journey here has been filled with the biggest and kindest hearts who have made this show what it is today. From early Arts Council application support for the R&D all the way to the incredible team we have today, and everyone involved in between. The show really is for the audiences it resonates with though, the gasps, the laughs, the tuts, the sniffles and the unfiltered clapbacks, thats what this is all for.

To be seen, to be heard, to be celebrated, and to be held, in community. Theatres don’t always feel like spaces where the characters in this show would feel welcome and accepted, it’s not enough to just say that they are, we need to actively do things differently and my hope is that with this show, we’re doing some of that.

Vitamin D is at Soho Theatre from 3 -21 September.

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