Brown Boys Swim

We think we’ll be alright - because we wade through air, not water, but that’s not enough.＂

Best friends Mohsen and Kash are gearing up for the biggest night of their lives - Jess Denver’s pool party. There’s just one problem... they can’t swim.

Fuelled by halal Haribo and chicken wings, the pair throw themselves in at the deep end, tackling cramped cubicles and cold showers as they learn how to be at one with the water.

Fierce, funny, and brimming with heart, Karim Khan examines the pressures faced by young Muslim men in this exhilarating new play about fitting in and striking out. This was published to coincide with
production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in August 2022.

Karim Khan is a screenwriter and playwright, based in Oxford. He is in development on a number of original projects and adaptations and is working with New Pictures, Kudos, The Ink Factory, World Productions, Big Light and Left Bank Pictures. He has worked on two new recent commissions - Brown Boys Swim with The North Wall and Oxford Playhouse, and Sweetmeets with Rifco and Watford Palace Theatre. Karim graduated from the MA Screenwriting course at the National Film and Television School with a Toledo and Channel 4 scholarship. His stage credits include Corrosive (Pegasus Theatre, 2019), Beyond Shame (Derby Theatre, 2018) and Orange Juice (The Pleasance, Burton Taylor Studio, 2017). Karim was also playwright in residence at the North Wall. Karim was on the Soho Writer’s Lab, as well as the Royal Court Writer’s Group, and prior to this, attached to the Oxford Playhouse. He contributed to Radio 4 sketch show Sketchtopia(TX April 2018), and has written three short animation films, A Bird with No Legs, Pidgeon, and Cabin Pressure.