Liberation Squares

Vaneeka Dadhria plays Ruqaya, her rapping and beat box skills are pretty impressive to say the least. Halema Hussain plays Xara, the TikTok influencer who doesn’t think twice about the consequences of skipping school and speaking her mind, and Asha Hassan completes the cast as Sabi, the comic book fan who dreams of studying the stars.

Milli Bhatia’s direction and Tomas Palmer’s design incorporates different levels whilst using little space, transporting us from bus stop to library to pavement protests with ease. We are easily in the story with the girls, observing them, yet feeling their angst.

Bhattacharyya’s writing is light hearted whilst still dealing with the harsh injustices of what life is like when you look “different” in the world. However, this is an important subject, the importance is not by any means lost within the performance, in fact it compels the audience to go and see for themselves when they get home.