Nima Taleghani seems astonished that I know anything about him. This is the man who plays Mr Farouk, quite beautifully, in the phenomenally successful Netflix series Heartstopper. He’s an established stage actor and has featured in a number of director Jamie Lloyd’s recent blockbuster theatre productions, from memorable turns in Lloyd’s bold new versions of Cyrano de Bergerac and Romeo and Juliet – where Taleghani’s skill as a rap artist helped him shine in the director’s stripped-back, miked-up productions.
This month, Taleghani will be the very first playwright to have a debut play staged on the vast Olivier stage at London’s National Theatre. To top it all off, the production – a ferociously original, rap-infused take on Euripides’ Greek tragedy The Bacchae – will open Indhu Rubasingham’s inaugural season as the National’s new artistic director.
It’s a big deal. Yet as our conversation unfolds in a small side room at the complex, the 32-year-old writer-actor seems remarkably relaxed. There’s something about Taleghani, with his silver chain and twinkling sense of mischief, that seems to exist on the edge of things – a place where all that noise and fuss can’t reach him. “I’m quite a cool cookie really,” he says. “I’m not too tied to the idea that if something good happens, my life is good, and if it doesn’t, my life is bad.”
Taleghani’s parents emigrated from Iran before he was born. He grew up on Elthorne estate in north London and, in his teens, very nearly got expelled from his comprehensive school. In a lovely quirk of fate, it was Taleghani’s drama teacher (who just happened to be the excellent playwright Vivienne Franzmann) who pulled her student back into the fold with the stern words: “You’re good at this. Take it seriously.” And so he did, focusing on his studies a little bit more and messing around in class just a little bit less. Through it all, Taleghani was always interested in rap and rhyme: rapping “badly” in the playground or on the street corner with his friends.
After some decent GCSE results, Taleghani “hustled and rascalled” his way into sixth form and eventually landed a place studying English literature at Warwick University. He didn’t always feel comfortable at Warwick and turned to spoken word to help him fit in with a literary crowd: “It was my way of introducing myself to this community I wasn’t used to being around. Because I was different from them. And I knew it.”
While studying at Warwick, Taleghani wrote one of his final Shakespeare modules in the form of rap. He was keen to test himself and see if he could do things the “traditional” way – but he also felt there were much more truthful ways to express himself. So Taleghani turned to rap, kickstarting a merging of classical content and contemporary form that has run like an electric thread through his early acting career.
After a master’s in English at University College London, there followed a flurry of acting work in the theatre. This included a particularly memorable Slung Low production of The White Whale, staged on a floating platform at Leeds dock. “It was for 500 people a night and it was free,” he says. “It was for the people and to serve the community. That spirit has stayed with me.” The work made a strong impression, but it was Taleghani’s time at Haringey Shed, when he was still at school, that was truly formative. “That was my first experience of theatre: a bunch of underprivileged kids and young people with different types of disabilities. The whole ethos was: what can we do with who we are and what we have? It was really raw and honest.”
Taleghani doesn’t raise his voice at this point – he’s far too relaxed for that – but his eyes gleam brighter still. “Watching that type of theatre always gets me so much more emotional and moved than 99% of supposed ‘theatre’. That type of theatre isn’t honest. It’s mannered. Trained. Sculpted. Whereas with Haringey Shed theatre, I believe it. It moves me more when you don’t hit the note perfectly.”
Taleghani’s very first authored play nearly didn’t happen. During lockdown, a producer asked the actor – a rising star thanks to his sparkling turn in Heartstopper – if he’d ever considered writing for theatre. No, was his quick reply. “I wasn’t really interested. Being a playwright isn’t my thing. You have to care. There has to be a sense of love. Just because there’s an opportunity there, it doesn’t mean you should take it.”
In fact, Taleghani still seems fairly sceptical about theatre in general. “Cinema’s cool because you can go and have your popcorn and Coke and even if the film isn’t good, you have a good time.” he says. “But if the play’s not good it’s a brutal experience, especially if you feel out of place in those environments. It’s just compounding the tragedy of theatre!”
But the playwriting queries kept coming in from producers aware of Taleghani’s rising profile as an actor and talent with rap and spoken word. So Taleghani decided to take another look at The Bacchae – about Dionysus, the Greek god of theatre, wine and general excess, who travels from Asia to Thebes to prove his godliness – and something finally clicked. ‘“I connected with the idea that a god could be a refugee. What does it say about society’s tendency to other people, that even a god can be an outcast? And what kind of god moves from where they’re revered, to somewhere they’re treated like shit? I found that really moving.”
Taleghani was determined to do something more with Dionysus’s chorus of followers, the Bacchae, who are “basically just backup dancers” in the original. Not so in Taleghani’s version, where each member of the female chorus has a sharply defined reason to leave their country. Their reasons for fleeing read like mini plays in their own right: one woman “chopped the left bollock off a touchy-feely priest”; another escaped a stoning orchestrated by her own brother; and a third sliced her husband’s face off with a razor after he tried to “rob her oesophagus of its oxygen”.
As I sit in on rehearsals on a blazing summer afternoon, Dionysus (Ukweli Roach) is meeting with his band of Bacchae. The very first cue I hear director Rubasingham utter to her huge ensemble cast is: “Can we have a bigger reaction after the word ‘dickhead’?” This is swiftly followed by: “Can we go from, ‘Shut up you shitty little dentist?’” The air crackles with possibility. Everyone in the vast company, including DJ Walde on the decks in one corner and choreographer Kate Prince in the other, seems utterly at ease but excited, too, and buzzing with ideas.
The flashes of dialogue I catch are vivid. Bold. Full of defiance and humour. The writing feels dynamic and instinctive, but Taleghani’s first attempt at playwriting didn’t always come easily. He laughs as he recalls his moments of doubt throughout the drafting process, but there’s vulnerability in there too. “I was getting really frustrated,” he says. “Feeling so stupid. Embarrassed. Ashamed. ‘Who do I think I am? Why am I trying to do this? I’m not the person for the job.’” He lets off another brittle laugh. “If I’d submitted my work and they’d said it was rubbish, I would’ve agreed with them. Of course it is! It’s my first draft and I haven’t even googled how to write a play!”
At one point, deep into the playwriting process, Taleghani quit altogether. But thanks to support from Rubasingham and her team of dramaturgs, as well as a frenzied co-codamol-fuelled redrafting session while recovering from a minor operation at home – the play kept driving forward.
Now, only a year after Taleghani and Rubasingham first met, Bacchae is landing on the Olivier stage with a bang. It comes amid promises of a “new chapter” for the National Theate. Fresh perspectives. An awful lot of press and pressure. Not that Taleghani is taking any notice of all that. “My friends from drama school have much more of a reverence for the National Theatre.” He lets out another cheeky chuckle: “I don’t have that. That heritage hasn’t been passed down to me. It isn’t in my body or my bones. So I can just get to work.”
Bacchae is at the National Theatre: Olivier, London, 13 September to 1 November.