Suleman’s Story, by Sampad Arts, looks at the real life dilemmas around tobacco consumption within a Bangladeshi family. Suleman is a young Bangladeshi male smoker with big dreams of becoming an internationally recognized KickBoxing champion. His father smokes and his grandmother chews paan and through the play we see how he begins to recognise the tobacco-related health risks that he and his family are facing. The launch performance of Suleman’s Story takes place at the mac, Birmingham on the 16th May at 7.30pm before it begins a 10 date regional tour.

Nearly 50% of the Bangladeshi men in the U.K. suffer from smoking related diseases – this is in comparison to 1 in 6 of the rest of the population. Yet, smokers from minority ethnic groups are ready to quit smoking just like their counterparts in the UK, though proportionally fewer make the attempt or access NHS support services. Similarly, Bangladeshi women are at high risk from mouth cancer due to the prevalence of chewing tobacco (paan).

These stark statistics have led the Heart of Birmingham NHS Trust to think creatively about how they can build relationships with these hard to reach communities. In producing the theatre piece, sampad’s production team have been clear that audiences would respond to theatre that was entertaining, thought-provoking and character led. Director Therese Collins, who has smoked intermittently for over 25 years felt an empathy with characters in the play:

“Smokers have a lot in common when it comes to giving up. Some younger groups that I spoke to in my research desperately wanted their parents to give up and were not sure about how to approach them. Similarly many parents were aware that their children were smoking but did not feel that they could communicate with them openly about the issue.

It was also interesting to learn that Bangladeshi women found great comfort and strength in chewing paan, especially in big groups. This play, however, is not about simply telling people to give up tobacco, but about raising awareness and giving the community knowledge on the health risks involved. It is a play about people, about growing up and about communicating.”

Piali Ray, sampad’s Director, notes that this project is an example of the role that the arts can play in enhancing health promotion: "sampad is always keen to produce work that plays with traditional and contemporary art forms of the South Asian diaspora - Suleman's Story is no different. Bangladesh has a long tradition of story-telling and song - you'll hear traditional folk song and urban grooves and witness the different attitudes towards tobacco usage and how this affects the health of younger and older Bangladeshi’s."

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