Happy Birthday Sunita

＂’People always think a woman who thinks for herself, who speaks her mind is dangerous. So I didn’t talk about my dreams or what was in my heart. And I was scared. Scared to let you follow your dreams. I didn’t know how to. But keeping quiet didn’t make my life better. It just made it lonely.’ The Johals are celebrating Sunita’s birthday in Mum’s new kitchen, and you’re invited to the surprise party. It’s not just the dhal that’s bubbling under the surface-- with decades of unfinished business, everyone’s true selves start to burst out when they least expect it. And it’s up to the family to pick each other back up and celebrate themselves for who they truly are. Unexpected guests, butter-free roti and skeletons in the cupboard aren’t enough to stop them busting out some classic Punjabi shapes in the kitchen! Join the Johal family for a wild ride that will leave you laughing, crying, and talking all the way home. Put on your birthday party finery and get ready for a samosa saga.＂--

Harvey Virdi is a writer and actress whose theatre credits include The Borrowers (at the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff), Tiger Country and Tales From The Harrow Road (Hampstead Theatre), When We are Married, Twelfth Night (in 1997 and 2004), Romeo and Juliet (in 2000), Square Circle and Playboy of the Asian World (all at the Leicester Haymarket), Airport 2000 (Riverside Studios, Hammersmith), and Jatinder Verma’s production of Exodus (Tara Arts/BAC). In 2003, she was ’Mrs Peachum’ in a touring production of The Threepenny Opera for the Royal National Theatre. In 2004 she gave a critically acclaimed Maria in an Indian-themed production of Twelfth Night at the Albery Theatre. She also appeared as Nina Mandal, in Coronation Street. She was a supporting cast member in two seasons of Class Dismissed. Her film credits include Bend It Like Beckham, Anita and Me, Thunderbirds, Bride and Prejudice, The Mistress of Spices, Honour, Jadoo, and Brick Lane. Television credits include The Kumars at No. 42 (as the family’s interfering landlady, ’Hawney’), Boohbah (as ’Mrs. Lady’), Doctors, Lucky Man (as ’Shefali Malhotra’), and Whose Baby?. As a writer, her credits include There’s Something About Simmy, The Deranged Marriage, and three RIFCO Arts productions: Happy Birthday Sunita in 2014 and 2023, Miss Meena & the Masala Queens in 2017, and Meri Christmas in 2006