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My White Best Friend: Writers of colour start difficult conversations with white loved ones

A week-long festival of letters is putting everything on the table at Bunker Theatre.

In My White Best Friend and Other Letters Left Unsaid, writers of colour engage with the uncomfortable conversations they have never had with their white loved ones.

The theatre festival has been created by playwright Rachel De-Lahay and director Milli Bhatia, who commissioned 11 writers to pen letters covering issues such as racial tension, microaggressions and emotional labour. These will be read aloud by performers who have never seen the letters before.

The writers taking part are Bola Agbaje, Zia Ahmed, Travis Alabanza, Fatimah Asghar, Nathan Bryon, Matilda Ibini, Jammz, Iman Qureshi, Anya Reiss, Nina Segal and Tolani Shoneye.

Actors Ben Bailey Smith, Phoebe Fox, George MacKay and Bunker artistic director Chris Sonnex are among those performing the pieces. The lineup for each night will be revealed on social media on the day.

De-Lahay said: “These are some of my favourite writers, who we asked to face some of their biggest fears and gripes about the world today. What we have now is a collection of brave and fearless essays of all the things most people tend to shy away from thinking let alone saying. And we’re going to shoot them out into the ether, for one night only – our very own Snapchat or Insta story of theatre.

My White Best Friend and Other Letters Left Unsaid runs at the Bunker Theatre from March 18-23, bunkertheatre.com