Theatre Review - Basmati Bitch

By Vanessa Elley

Basmati Bitch, written by Ankita Singh and directed by Ahi Karunaharan, is a non-stop hour and a half packed with quirky characters, fast-paced fight choreography, and witty comedy.

The audience drops into a perpetually rainy (very familiar) future Auckland, year 2123, where rice has become a rare commodity being illegally smuggled across the globe, and undocumented climate refugees get swept up in underground networks of exploitation. To help us make sense of this new world, enter Shiva, our narrator. Shiva is a skilled ex-MMA fighter working on an anger management problem, and as she’s dragged into the world of turf wars over rice, the journey begins.

A creative vision for a possible future Auckland City comes alive through dynamic graphics, punchy dialogue, and quick set changes. The show takes you off guard from its first moment and keeps surprising you for the rest of its run time. I loved seeing familiar Auckland streets become part of an imaginative and entirely believable dystopia. (I’ll be keeping an eye out for any emerging rice cartels in the Wynyard Quarter).

Basmati Bitch covers a myriad of intense yet incredibly relevant topics, such as climate change, displacement, and food shortages. This story is well aware of its place in the present, even as it explores a far flung future. It feels right at home among our current news cycle of cost of living crises and weather turmoil. Yet, this is not a story focused on disaster. It is lighthearted and funny, and never for a moment takes itself too seriously.

The audience at my show was involved and engaged, cheering on different characters and reacting to each and every quip and fourth-wall break. Karunaharan’s stage adaptation of Singh’s script takes inspiration from anime, manga, and graphic novels, and that influence makes the show exciting, nimble, and a visual treat.

I appreciated the thought put into the dystopian future world the characters inhabit, with a believable timeline of events showing just how we got there from here. Yet, although the world was complex, the story stayed simple and effective and left the characters and visual effects to shine. The sound design is a highlight, pairing perfectly with the fight choreography and making every comedic moment truly funny.

Naidoo and Grebneff’s performances as Shiva and Bisma are especially standout. It was fun to see their dynamic unfold, and I loved how the actors bounced off each other to create a relationship I was thoroughly invested in by the end.

Each character is given their own time to develop during the show, which was well worth it for me as I found myself wanting to know more about each of the backstories being hinted at. The audience was drawn into the cast’s escapades right from the start. There was never a slow moment, from umbrella duels to confrontations under future Auckland’s ever-present rain.

Overall, Basmati Bitch is a clever, original, and fun vision of a dystopian Auckland, with characters I was rooting for and relationships that had a ton of heart for an action-packed hour and a half.

Basmati Bitch is presented by Auckland Theatre Company, Oriental Maidens and SquareSums&Co, at Q Theatre until 5 August.