We sat down with Niall Moorjani to chat about their new show Kanpur:1857, coming to Edinburgh Fringe 2025. Winner of the Charlie Hartill Fund 2025, Kanpur:1857 is a darkly acomic new play by Niall Moorjani, offering a satirical interrogation of colonial history. Set during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, it challenges the narrative of heroism and villainy, examining contemporary conflicts around gender, colonial violence and making art in times of crisis.
See the show at Pleasance Courtyard (Beneath) from 30th July – 24th August at 15:40, get your tickets here.
Thank you for chatting with A Young(ish) Perspective! Introduce us to who you are and what your doing at the Edinburgh Fringe this year?
Hello, I’m Niall Moorjani, a writer, theatre maker based in Edinburgh. My work often deals with anti-colonial and queer themes, and I also love myth and legend. This year I’m actually brining three shows to the Fringe (which is depressingly standard for me), a kids show called ‘Rajiv’s starry feelings’ (which I wrote and co-directed with the amazing Charlie Anne Bruce), The Green Knight (but it’s Gay) which is a comic and queered retelling of the Green Knight legend, and then finally (the big one) is Kanpur:1857 which is about the Indian uprising of 1857.
A Youngish Perspective platforms accessible arts and champions the huge scope of different perspectives – can you tell us about the show you’re taking to Edinburgh Festival Fringe as if you’re flyering to both a young first-time-Fringe goer and a festival veteran returning every year?
Ha, I mean I have been both the fresh-faced baby Flyerer and am now a haggard ancient (30 year old) veteran of 8 fringes so hopefully I can pitch this right. If you are new to the festival, it’s everything a piece of fringe theatre should be, bold, tight and thought provoking whilst working on an extremely small budget. Don’t expect big ensemble casts or fancy set and tech, but do expect excellent performances, brilliant writing and experimentation with the form. For the haggard returner, I guess I would say the same thing, but also that the show is a really interesting mix of theatre, storytelling and live music. Jonathan (my co-star and co-director) and I worked really hard on synthesising these three elements in a way we feel is fairly unique. I think to both groups I would say that the show is also deeply political and as much as it’s set in the past, it speaks directly to the present. It’s funny, biting and at times challenging, but in a really good way, basically come see it whenever you are.
There are several complex themes at play in this piece, queerness, colonialism, the ethics of resistance. How are you able to give these topics the space they require without overloading the play with content?
I think it’s a case where (especially historically speaking) these things are utterly tied together and to try and tell a story of resitting colonialism without representing them would have been impossible. So, they all come out naturally in the story and are core parts of it rather than being shoehorned in. Also, it was never going to be possible to tell the whole story of one of the largest uprisings against the British empire, so instead I’m telling just one (through the eyes of a fictionalised character), so that made it easier as well. I would have adored to have gone into more depth on some of the topics covered, but that just wasn’t doable whilst also making a dramatic and entertaining piece. For me the story always came first and everything else had to come out of that, it’s a show and not a lecture at the end of the day. I also don’t think it’s a bad thing at all if people want to read more after the show, in fact that’s one of my great aims.
Shows such as this one are more relevant than ever, how does Kanpur: 1857 interact with our broader political and social climate at the moment?
Ultimately it does on two fairly significant levels. First it challenges the prevailing notions of the British empire being (for some) a positive force for good and for most a passive concept that just sort of happened. It also challenges the idea that colonised people took empire lying down and didn’t resist their oppression. In a Scottish context, it also highlights the role Scotland played in empire and the mass atrocities it committed.
In terms of very directly to 2025, the show was written partly in response to the history itself; but also to what is happening in Gaza, I was so struck by the parallels of a violent oppressor experiencing violence in return and then being unable to process it, which in turn led (in India and also in Gaza) to mass punishment and murder of many who weren’t actually involved in the uprising. What happened in 1857 was one of the great crimes of empire and what is happening now is one of the great crimes of our age.
Who would your surprise dream audience member be?
Gosh so hard, I’m going to narrow it down to David Olusoga, Dev Patel and Anouskha Shankar. But I also don’t want any of them to come because I would panic and not be able to do the show.