Madani Younis, 29, first shot to public attention in 2002 with Asian Theatre School’s Streets of Rage which achieved widespread critical acclaim. He won the South Bank Show Award (decibel Award for cultural diversity, sponsored by Arts Council England) and the GG2 Leadership and Diversity award for Film, Drama and TV, both in 2006, before establishing Freedom Studios later that year with funding from Arts Council England.
Happy & Married? sets out Freedom Studios’ original approach to making theatre, bringing together a range of creative practitioners including a visual artist in residence, a magician and a professional harmonica player. The play’s central couple, Ron and Marian, is played by Dharmesh Patel and Susanna Alctund. Patel has worked with Madani Younis for several years, featuring in Silent Cry in 2004 for the Asian Theatre School and Alctund joins the company from France where she trained at Philipe Gaulier’s theatre school in Paris.
In this dark comedy, the custom of marriage is uncovered, exploring its relevance to society today and revealing all that is usually concealed behind closed doors, in an emotional journey that begins with “I do” and is disrupted by external factors including parents, exes and squirrels…
Happy & Married? creates a world coloured by disorder and disillusion, where the reality of human relationships falls short of expectations. With weddings constantly appearing in glossy magazines and the culture of celebrity peddling ideas of perfection, Happy & Married? looks beyond these perfectly orchestrated set-pieces at how our lives are expected to be. The play follows the path taken by Ron and Marion both individually and together as a result of being married, dealing with whatever comes their way, be it celebrating the retirement of Ron’s mother or the pursuit of Marion’s dream of becoming a professional musical soloist.
Artistic Director Madani Younis comments: “Marriage is a universal ideal that cuts across the barriers that can come with race or culture and across generations. With this production we wanted to understand why so many of us find ourselves attracted to marriage; what are our hopes for what it will bring to our lives and why do we seem to be obsessed by having ‘the perfect marriage’?
Our first show is a moment to set out our stall creatively, allowing us to express ourselves in our own terms, producing new work that is relevant to the lives we lead and the world we live in. Freedom Studios stands apart, using the shared thoughts and influences of international creative experiences from the team which have informed the work artistically. ‘Happy & Married?’ is a culmination of the ideas that came from all the artists that we have been working with so intensively in recent months.”
