Nichola McAuliffe On … Her Very British Subject

Anything that involves a Muslim, a tabloid hack, a prince and an actress has to be either a shaggy dog or a play. And, as the punch line wouldn’t even provoke canned laughter, Alison Hindell at Radio 4 commissioned me to write an afternoon play based on the true story of my husband, a Daily Mirror journalist, going to Pakistan to visit a British Asian man on death row.

The glimpse of Mirza Tahir Hussain’s suffering as he waited for his inevitable hanging threw our middle-aged discomforts with our lot into sharp relief and we became involved in the clamour to get him released. With weeks to go before his hanging, we needed a miracle and fervent prayers to St Jude, the Patron saint of Hopeless causes, led to The Prince of Wales, more famous for agricultural pursuits than turning water into wine…

The play, My Brother’s Keeper, was broadcast and there were no more plans for it. (Whatsonstage.com readers will be more aware than most that getting a play on should have been included in the labours of Hercules, only it was thought too difficult.)

But shortly after, Anthony Alderson asked me to adapt the script for the stage. He produced it at the Edinburgh Fringe and a couple of days before we closed my phone rang and a voice said: “Could you bring it to New York for Christmas?” Though its title was now A British Subject it was hardly a panto but the four strong cast, thrilled at the opportunity, went to the Big Apple.

On our return I thought that was the end of it. But Mig Kimpton at the Arts Theatre thought different and has put it on as the third play in his Drama at The Arts season.

It seems, as I write this on his Feast Day, St Jude wants the story shared with a wider audience. And at a time when Islam, journalism and the Royals jostle with binge drinkers and celebrity women made up like drag queens for media space, its themes of tolerance, faith, and the necessity of being a fully paid up member of the awkward squad seem more and more important.

While the play may be regarded as political with a small p, the cast David Rintoul, Kulvinder Ghir and me (as Nichola McAuliffe – it’s a stretch) ensure that all laughs are sought out with the dedication of truffle pigs. But our main objective is to communicate this extraordinary story, and whether at the end of the 90 minutes you’re optimistic or despairing at our naïveté, I hope it will have the same effect on you as it has had on me – to look beyond stereotypes and know angels when we meet them.

A British Subject continues at the Arts until 26 November.