‘The Gentlemen’s Club’ is a brand-new show which opened this week at Soho Theatre in London, headlined by Puja Sarup as Rocky, a.k.a. Shammsher, whose act is a tribute to the legendary Indian actor Shammi Kapoor and the golden era of Hindi cinema.
Alongside Rocky is an ensemble of performers recreating Mumbai’s gritty underbelly where people are free to be whoever they desire. The subversive production, featuring a dazzling mix of cabaret-style performances and Bollywood dance, is the brainchild of Mumbai-based Patchworks Ensemble – making its international debut with a new version of their hit show earlier presented by the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) India. Weaving provocative storytelling with celebratory performances, this newly updated version offers a uniquely Indian perspective that redefines how gender and identity are portrayed on stage.
In this interview, Patchworks Ensemble co-founder actor-director Puja Sarup tells iGlobal about the journey of this unique comedy, its international appeal and plans for the future.
How do you feel about the show’s international premiere at an iconic London venue like Soho Theatre?
We at Patchworks Ensemble are looking forward to our two-week run at the Soho Theatre. The play opened in India in 2015 and since then we have performed in cities across India and the response has been overwhelming.
Though some of the characters may seem very specific to an Indian scenario, they are based on universal archetypes, so we hope that audiences in London would relate to them too. In India, it is also rare for us to get a straight two-week run and so we are excited to see how the show evolves in these two weeks.
It is the 10-year anniversary for Patchworks Ensemble this year and the run at NCPA and Soho Theatre is a great way to celebrate that, in venues specially known for their eclectic programming.
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Would you say the show would appeal to fans of the Shammi Kapoor era and beyond?
One of the drag king personas in the show is inspired by Shammi Kapoor and it is an homage to his unique portrayal of masculinity in the Bollywood films of the 1960s. The show includes snippets from Kapoor’s hit numbers, an opportunity for fans to sing along. It'll be interesting to see how they will respond to the drag king avatar of their favourite star.
However, the show is not only for Shammi fans. It also has many other drag king personas, ranging from a Bengali intellectual to a pop culture icon to a real estate agent revelling in his toxic masculinity.
What is your message for London audiences as this show opens?
Come over, join us, sing with us, dance with us. There's something in the show for everyone. Devised storytelling is all about drawing moments of truth from our conversations and behaviours, so we hope what we have to offer will be instantly relatable. We promise it will be an evening of celebration.
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Looking ahead, what are the plans for this show and Patchworks Ensemble?
We have reworked the show from the original version which we conceptualised in 2015 and so are excited to do more shows in India and abroad.
Patchworks has other exciting stories in the kitty that we want to look at and create more plays, collaborating with more artists from different fields. We have another ongoing production called ‘Shikaar’, which is about a group of chudails (witches), and is, once again, a subversion of our expectations of gender. We would love to travel with that production as well.
*Ticket Info: The Gentlemen’s Club; Patchworks Ensemble
