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‘The Buddha of Suburbia’: Emma Rice on Working With Hanif Kureishi to Make His Iconic 1970s-Set Novel Relevant to Modern Theater Audiences


The Royal Shakespeare Company's theater adaptation of 'The Buddha of Suburbia' follows an acclaimed novel and TV series.

The Royal Shakespeare Company ‘s theater adaptation of “ The Buddha of Suburbia ” had hard acts to follow, coming after an acclaimed novel and TV series. “The book was really important to me, because it made me reframe my own childhood and my own experience growing up in an inner-city, multicultural area in the 1980s,” Rice told Variety of “The Buddha of Suburbia.” “History comes in waves, and I felt this was a really fabulous time to look back at the 1970s.” Rice added that her response to what she describes as Kureishi’s “provocation” was to “really blend the issues that we’re still dealing with now, the Metropolitan police, racism, sexual grooming in theater and all sorts of industries.

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