‘Dial 1 for UK’ – Mohit Mathur goes to work…

The country is full, we don’t need immigrants, right?

MOHIT MATHUR appears like a man on a mission and he might well be.

His one man show, ‘Dial 1 for UK‘ has been touring the country and comes to an end tomorrow (November 20).

Spurred by the national debate on immigration, his one man play tumbles headlong into a character’s dream of making it big in the the UK from India.

Step forward Indian-born and raised ‘Uday Kumar’, now call centre worker and YouTube influencer, who dreams of Big Ben, Tea with the Royals and fish and chips. His channel is an ode to England and there is no city on earth more wonderous than London.

Fast forward a week and ‘Kumar’ is in London on a dodgy visa to start, then goes underground and life isn’t Fortnum & Mason – rather he is in a care home, working and cleaning up an old man’s toilet mess.

A performer – dancer, actor and choreographer, this is the versatile Mathur’s first play and is a solo show.

“Uday is a call centre employee (at the start of the play) in India and I am always talking to someone in the play – he’s trying to sell cryptocurrency to British people and at the same time he’s watching movies such as ‘Mary Poppins‘ and his dream is to come to the UK.”

Mathur clearly wants us to see the other side of the migration debate and ask, how much of this concern is fuelled by racism, dressed up as something else?

And with Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood proposing a much tougher immigration regime all round – will it have unintended consequences on migration and those looking to build a life here?

Speaking to www.asianculturevulture.com as his Autumn tour had just begun, he told us: “ ‘Dial 1 for UK’ also started after I got a cold call from someone working in a call centre in India and there was this one time when I told the guy I didn’t want whatever he was offering (a mobile phone contract) and he got really angry with me and started abusing me.”

Ouch.

As a neurodivergent creative, he has worked with Flute Theatre, which specialises in making Shakespeare accessible to children across the spectrum and diverse audiences, at home and abroad.

He toured ‘Pericles’ and a ‘Midsummer’s Night Dream’ internationally with them in a leading role and noticed something about the kids in the UK.

“Nearly all the carers the children came with were either Indian or Nigerian.”

As someone who was born and raised in India himself, he could relate to the pull of the West – it was his dream too.

“This show is very personal. I wanted to live and work in US or the UK when I was in India.”

Mathur, when he got here, was also fascinated by the way many elderly Britons end up in a care home.

“Whereas in India you don’t send your old folks to a care home – they stay with you until they die. So, my character comes in initially with a visa and then starts looking after this old guy who has been abandoned by his son and it is while he is here that his life starts crumbling in front of him.

“All those things that he thought would be great, aren’t. England isn’t London – you go to a place like Grantham,” he said.

Mathur’s show is very much about seeing both sides of this coin – the pull and lure for the immigrant and then the brutal reality.

It’s about bridging gaps and differences and promoting much needed understanding and empathy and doing it in a way that is entertaining, funny and revealing.

Mathur got his big break and his introduction to Britain with the musical, ‘Beyond Bollywood‘ (2015).

He was the lead dancer and loved being in Britain and went to drama school to strengthen his credentials and has acted and sung in the UK since 2021 – he was in the ‘Life of Pi’, the West End show that toured internationally and before that appeared in Roald Dahl’s ‘Revolting Rhymes’ and the Welsh National Opera’s ‘Migrations’.

Growing up in Delhi, he loved dancing and after reaching the finals of TV dance competition in India, moved to Mumbai to make it more of a career, having graduated in Engineering and his family expecting him to follow in his father’s footsteps and join the Indian Air Force.

But the lure of performing saw him take a very different path.

He has a great energy about him, is creative and expressive and feels the migration debate has become very one-sided, hostile and shorn of any humanity and yes, ‘Dial 1 for UK’ tries to put things in perspective and looks to make a positive contribution to a difficult and sensitive subject.

It’s directed by Phil Willmott and has been developed through a number of festival slots for shorter work and writing programmes and has Arts Council funding. Mathur took it to Edinburgh Fringe in August and has already performed it in shorter iterations abroad – in Canada and Mumbai.

He now hopes to tour it in its fully fledged form abroad next year, as well add UK new dates.

“There’s been a great response – I’ve done post-show Q&As and a lot of people stay behind and want to talk to me about the issues in the show,” Mathur told acv.

Listing
‘Dial 1 for UK’ by Mohit Mathur, tomorrow (November 20) 7.30pm – The Place Theatre, Bradgate Road Bedford MK40 3DE
More info/tickets: https://www.theplacebedford.org.uk/shows/dial-1-for-uk/