Photographer: Alex Galloway
Words: Emma Kinsey
The National Theatre’s Olivier theatre is one of London’s most iconic stages, a landmark steeped in history and home to countless legendary performances. This September, for the first time in history, it will host a play by a debut playwright. That play is Bacchae, written by Nima Taleghani.
Best known for his work as an actor—in Netflix’s global hit Heartstopper and in Jamie Lloyd’s acclaimed productions of Romeo and Juliet, and Cyrano—Taleghani now steps into an extraordinary new role. Born and raised on a North London estate, Taleghani’s adaptation of the Greek tragedy emerges from a genuine desire to give a platform to underrepresented sections of society. Infused with spoken word, rhyme and rap, his Bacchae unleashes anarchic, dangerous, defiant women onto one of the most seminal stages in London.
When we spoke, Taleghani was disarmingly casual about his historic milestone—his grounded charm only amplifying the anticipation for what promises to be one of the season’s most electric plays…
I want to start by saying congratulations! You’ve broken new ground in being the first debut writer to put on their play at the Olivier Theatre. Not only that, but your play marks the start of Indu Rubasingham’s tenure as Artistic Director of the National Theatre. Have you had time to let this sink in?
Nima Taleghani: There’s been no time for it to sink in. But I think that’s actually a good thing—I haven’t been distracted at all. Part of me keeps thinking, surely I’ll feel something soon, like excitement or a big “woohoo”. But for now, it’s just been about working hard, working fast, head down in the lab.
Up until now, you’ve been best known in your career as an actor, having played Mr. Farouk in Netflix’s Heartstopper, as well as working with prolific theatre director Jamie Lloyd on Cyrano and in Romeo and Juliet, playing Benvolio to Tom Holland’s Romeo. How has all that experience as an actor shaped the way you write?
Nima Taleghani: I think as an actor, especially in theatre, you get an immediate response—whether something’s working, whether an audience is with you, if a beat lands, if they’re bored, or if they’re struggling to follow. Hopefully that’s given me some sense of how to engage an audience. It’s also taught me to create something that’s genuinely audience-facing. It’s not about an intellectual experiment or something that’s overly niche, but about creating something that can entertain or move a wide cross-section of people. Doing shows like Heartstopper showed me how much a story can capture imaginations on a global scale. I keep saying “hopefully” because I can’t guarantee it—but hopefully it means that the work feels like there’s something in it for, if not everyone, then at least a broad spectrum of society.
Right—because you have that firsthand knowledge of the relationship between a performer and the audience.
Nima Taleghani: Exactly. Hopefully it feels like the audience aren’t just spectators—they’re involved, they’re necessary, they’re the key component for it to be a show. For me, it’s about honesty, truthfulness, playfulness, and caring for our audience—not pretending they’re invisible. In Bacchae, the audience even becomes the people of Thebes.
That feels almost serendipitous since The Bacchae centres on Dionysus, who’s the god of theatre, and your play is staged at one of the most iconic theatres in London, designed in the style of a Greek amphitheatre. I assume you didn’t know that when you were writing. So what originally drew you to the play and tackling this monumental piece of writing?
Nima Taleghani: Initially, it was the idea that, in this world, even a god can be a refugee—and I think that struck a chord with me. It shows how society has such a propensity and deep instinct to “other” people that even a god can be othered. That’s how far discrimination or marginalisation can extend within a community or culture—whether that’s race, culture, language, gender or all those things. That’s how ingrained it is; people take “othering” so seriously that even a god can be a refugee.
I was also really moved by The Bacchae being women from Asia who were in need of liberation, mirrored by the women of Greece who were also in need of freedom under King Pentheus’s rule. In the original, they are a homogenous chorus without individual voices. I wanted to ask: why don’t they speak? Why aren’t they treated as individuals? Why don’t they all have specific backstories, reasons for leaving, and reasons for going? More than simply “because there’s a god.”
So your adaptation gives these women autonomy and individuality. How did you go about giving these women voices and a platform to be heard?
Nima Taleghani: I think a lot of it is based on real stories that I’ve heard, things I’ve seen happen, things I know occur, and experiences I was involved in growing up—whether that’s political prisoners or people in the area who were mistreated. Just using those examples that I’ve witnessed in my life helped me give the characters personality, individuality, and honesty.
Your play uses spoken word, rhyme and elements of rap. Has this style of writing always interested you and has it helped you transport the text to a more contemporary world for a more contemporary audience?
Nima Taleghani: Yeah, I think rhyming has always been something I’ve found very fascinating, satisfying and exciting. Poetic drama used to be huge back in the day, but less so now. On one side you have straight drama, on the other musicals or hip-hop musicals, but there’s space in between for poetic drama with proper, multisyllabic rhyme. Not strict meter, but rhyme that feels alive.
They say Shakespeare is modelled on human speech, but it rarely sounds like humans are actually talking. I try to find a balance where the people on stage are aware they’re speaking in a way that’s not quite natural, but they’re enjoying it. Theatre is never going to be “real” the way life is real—we all know that when we step into the theatre. So I feel the more aware we are of the fact that we’re in a theatre—that we’re speaking in this elevated way, rhyming, and having a good time—the more it can be truthful.
That’s kind of similar to musical theatre—someone speaks, then suddenly sings. But if it’s rooted in truth, then as an audience, you just accept it and it enhances the performance.
Nima Taleghani: Yeah, because you’re open to it as well. You know the deal when you go into a musical—they’re going to start singing, and that’s their way of expressing the emotion to the audience, and we’re game for it. It’s about being transparent, we’re going to start singing songs that we’ve rehearsed in the hope they move you or revel what this character is feeling at that time.
Has music played a part in shaping the story? Are there any artists or genres of music in particular that have influenced your writing?
Nima Taleghani: Probably loads, without even realising. You know who I was listening to today? Billie Piper—I knew her as a pop star—[sings] “so deep inside, no matter how you run and try hide…” I ride well off nostalgia because it reminds you of a more innocent time, when you didn’t know so much, and you trusted your instincts a bit more. That helps me write more truthfully, more playfully, with fewer limits.
So Billie Piper hasn’t directly influenced my version of this play, but has probably helped me tap into an emotional, nostalgic place where I can be a bit more naive and instinctual in my writing. It’s about getting back into that child mindset, where you’re playful and there are no limits on what you can do or where you can take the story.
You know when you’re a kid and you put on a show for your family—you’re focused on what you think is good or what matters in the moment. I was never thinking, “oh society requires a show in rhyme”. I just wanted to write something that felt honest and could sit somewhere naturally in culture. It was never about being taken seriously as a writer—it simply made sense to me.
The process of bringing the play from page to stage must feel very different now that you’re the writer rather than the performer. How has it been working with the actors, director, composer and wider artistic team?
Nima Taleghani: It’s actually been very different. Over the last year, I’ve been focussed on taking notes and improving the script, so the focus has been on me quite intensely. In rehearsals, though, it’s about finding a synergy between the script, the actors, the composer, the choreographer, the lighting, the design—and the director, who brings it all together with her own spice and seasoning, layering a million things on top. I’ve still had to work hard and fast, making cuts and changes, sculpting the piece around the production. It’s about how the script serves the production. Ultimately, it’s about giving it over to the collective—which has been really nice.
I was going to ask whether it felt like your baby and now you’re sharing it with the whole room of creatives, but it sounds like it’s been more of a relief than hard to let go.
Nima Taleghani: I’ve never been too precious about it. I want to be told when something isn’t good or needs work, so I can get it to a place where it’s the most entertaining offering for an audience. I really believe people should get their money’s worth—because if you give them a bad experience in theater, they’re not going to come back. So I really want the notes. I’ll lick my wounds, then get back on my laptop. I learned to be really as unpretentious as possible about it. It’s only scary when you feel like something’s not working and you don’t know how to improve it.
I guess it’s helpful you’ve got a good team.
Nima Taleghani: Yeah, you know, my director luckily has a really sharp dramaturgical brain which means I can get proper dramaturgical notes from her as well as from the dramaturgs. What’s great is that I can take my dramaturg’s feedback, bring it to my director, and she adds her own thoughts. That’s important because it has to make sense for her too—it needs to be something that she feels she can give a generous offering to. So it becomes a process of layering all of that on top of each other.
I also wanted to ask what new thought, feeling or idea would you hope that the audience might come away with after watching your play?
Nima Taleghani: No idea. Honestly, no idea. I just hope they feel their time was well spent—that if they’d bought a ticket, it was worth both their time and their money.
You’ve now rewritten the rules and achieved what no other playwright has before. I’m sure this will inspire a whole generation of upcoming aspiring young writers. So what advice would you give to anyone who dares to dream of being successful as a playwright or even in this industry as a whole?
Nima Taleghani: I never really dared to dream of being successful as a playwright myself. I’m not sure I’m in the business of giving advice to the masses. But I do think staying slightly naive is always a good thing—being in touch with the part of you that knows it doesn’t know everything. That kind of naivety pushes you to go for things that you might otherwise hold back from. It stops you from putting yourself down unnecessarily or being too self-deprecating.
I think the key is to stay authentic—not in the sense of limiting yourself to a fixed identity of what you can or can’t do, but in the sense of meaning what you say and being honest in your work. When you really connect with yourself, you come up with things that only you could create. But if you’re trying too hard to be someone else, or you’re watching yourself too much, worrying about how people perceive you, then you’re just manufacturing a version of yourself. So tap in, and try to make something that feels authentic.
For more information on Bacchae and to purchase tickets head to the National Theatre website.