FIVE DAYS

A new show by Joe Nawaz, Five Days, is on at the Court House Bangor as part of the Open House Festival on 30th August before it goes to the Lyric Theatre for four dates in September, and then it goes further afield on tour.

In April 2005, writer Joe Nawaz and his family travelled from Belfast to the wilds of Pakistan on the trail of a mystery. The mystery of how, where and why his father Rab had been murdered there. In this fiercely funny and poignant production Joe will share the difficulties of transporting a body across international lines (easier to pack a poodle), the bizarre odyssey that he and his family took in their quest for truth without even a snippet of Urdu, Pakistani dress sense or cultural smarts. Join Joe as he takes us to the land of his father, where he never felt more Irish, as he sketches some of the history of that country and its unlikely links with Ireland.

Along the way we hear about Pakistani McDonalds, the best way to hold an automatic weapon when you’re offering someone a light, and how much it costs to grab a taxi from Islamabad airport to the Himalayas. Joe also examines his family’s experience living in NI as a mixed-race family juxtaposed with a journey into an unfamiliar place and culture. Interrogating the very blurred lines between factual, personal experience and memory, Five Days is a celebration of family and an exploration of identity in a place where identity is still contentious. Joe has written extensively about growing up mixed-race in NI. In the murky wake of the centenary of NI and current local political disfunction, this show offers a unique perspective on partitions of all kinds.

Joe Nawaz

Joe Nawaz is a writer, performer and critic who lives and works in Belfast.

A former television critic with the Belfast Telegraph, Joe is a regular contributor to radio and television. He has written two live shows, Hey You! and Fake ID which premiered at Belfast Comedy Festival (2016 and 2017 respectively). He co-founded and wrote for Shotglass Theatre, producing new work in unorthodox settings and premiering six new shows (including Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Belfast and Open House Festival Bangor) from 2013 – 2016. Joe wrote and performed the acclaimed one man show Fake ID which toured across Northern Ireland to sell-out audiences (2018-2019). He has contributed two scripts to ensemble productions at the MAC, Belfast – The Love Doctor (Date Show, 2018) & Bricks (for audio play On the Street Where We Live, 2021). He also created a BBC Radio documentary Sticking Out, (nominated for an Irish Radio Award in 2019). Joe performed a couple of nights of his most recent show Small Tales from Talktown, before the pandemic put paid to such public gatherings.