Overview

Yasmin is involved in a number of voluntary community organizations in London and Bedford. With Paul Ross, she has co-presented, researched and scripted a series for Anglia TV, which examines various youth issues.

Yasmin is also a renowned commentator on the arts and regularly speaks on issues concerning Asian writers in the media. She has contributed to lectures, panel debates and symposia at King’s College London, ICA and Soho Theatre, London Festival Hall and appeared on BBC 2’s Desi DNA series.

She is on the board of directors for Kadam South Asian Dance Promotion Company, writing for their quarterly magazine Pulse and is also a guest features writer for The Mail on Sunday.

Stage

BELLS (2005): Birmingham Rep, Southwark Playhouse and UK tour (Kali Theatre).

TELEPHONE LOVE a short monologue for Pentabus Theatre Company.

LUCY (2002): Cambridge Drama Centre (Menagerie/Hotbed).

PLEASURE AND PAIN (2002): Performed at the Soho Theatre and Writers’ Centre.

LOVE STOMP (2001): Performed at the Bowen West Theatre in Bedford (Kadam Dance Promotion Company).

VEIL (2000): A short play performed at the Watermans Arts Centre, Brentford.

RESHAAM (2000): National tour (Hawth Theatre, Crawley).

Radio

SILVER STREET (2004/5) 2 x blocks of 5 episodes for the BBC Asian Network.

Film

LEMON JUKE BOX (a five minute short).

LE GRAND JOUR (2004), a short film produced by Revolution Films in association with the Film Council for Refugee Week.

"Bells"

Yasmin’s play BELLS, a love story set in an Asian courtesan club in East London, opened at Birmingham Rep in 2005 and toured nationally with Kali Theatre to widespread critical acclaim and national press attention, soon followed by a Greek translation for production in Athens.

Bollywood and Lollywood films frequently depict Mujra clubs - or Moslem brothels - but they stop short of the full story. Writer Yasmin Whittaker Khan sets out to deglamorise and expose their ugly reality on the basis of her research into Britain’s little publicised Mujras.

Her work is paired with Azma Dar’s sharply contrasting play Chaos, running in parallel at Southwark Playhouse. The two plays share actors who take on very different and strongly acted roles.

Nicholas Khan as Ashraf transforms himself into a morally bankrupt brute with vestiges of the good bloke, while Marc Elliott portrays Pepsi as a camp queen, weeping within, and Damian Asher is the oh-so-British - but also Indian - Charles.

The play’s two women, who unlike the male characters do not appear in Chaos, are Shivan Ghai as Aiesha, a whore with integrity and literary taste, and Madam, played with worldly swagger by Sharona Sassoon.

The audience is part of the clientele in Madam and Ashraf’s Mujra club Bells, which is tucked away above Ashraf’s halal butcher’s shop.

Similarities between the two meat markets are underlined by Matthew Wright’s set design. The clinical doors of the butcher’s fridge open to reveal the seedy, sparkly promise of the Mujra.

One minute we are unnerved by proximity to Ashraf’s bloodied apron and lethal butchering knives, the next by Aiesha’s and Pepsi’s gyrating hips and bellies.

The message is unsubtle and the realities to which we are exposed can seem exaggerated but they succeed in presenting a world that some people like to pretend does not exist.