Camdenwalla brings the true story of North London's grassroots resistance to the stage

A play about the community that protected itself when no one else would opens in Camden this June

Camdenwalla tells the true story of the Camden Monitoring Project, a grassroots network that kept Bengali workers safe from racist attack in 1990s North London. It opens at Camden People's Theatre on 17 June.

There is a particular kind of solidarity that communities build when institutions fail them. Not loud or visible. Answering a phone at midnight. Organising a lift home for someone who cannot safely walk through their own neighbourhood. Writing down what happened when no one official will. The Camden Monitoring Project did all of this, operating out of the building that is now Camden People's Theatre, in the years when racist violence in North London was routine and routinely ignored.

Camdenwalla, written and directed by Olivier Award nominated Jonny Khan, opens at Camden People's Theatre on 17 June and runs until 4 July. The play is set over one night in 1994 inside the Monitoring Project itself, following Muhammad, a first-generation Bangladeshi immigrant volunteering through the night, and Alima, a British-Bangladeshi teenager reluctantly drawn into his world. As calls come in and tensions rise, the two are forced to confront the gulf between generations and competing ideas of what it means to protect a community.

Bhasker Patel, best known as Rishi Sharma in Emmerdale but a veteran of the National Theatre, Donmar Warehouse and Broadway, plays Muhammad. Nusrath Tapadar, whose credits include Tara Theatre, Hope Theatre and Omnibus Theatre, plays Alima. Sam Edmunds, whose recent work includes Blanket Ban at Southwark Playhouse, is associate director and producer.

The Camden Monitoring Project was founded by Nasim Ali, who would go on to become the UK's first Bangladeshi and Muslim Mayor. The play draws on archival research and real testimony from members of Camden's Drummond Street community. Alongside the production, Camden People's Theatre is working with the Drummond Street Traders and Euston BID to host a festival day celebrating the Bengali history and culture of the area.

Khan has described the play as an ode to the generation who laid the groundwork for everything their children have been able to create. "This is our moment to take the reins," he said, "to honour what came before us, and to shape what comes next."

The story resonates now for the same reasons it resonated in 1994. Communities still build their own protection when institutions look away. They always have.

Camden People's Theatre, 58 to 60 Hampstead Road, NW1 2PY.

Dates: 17 June to 4 July 2026. Press night 18 June.

Tickets at cptheatre.co.uk.