Ishy Din left school with O-levels and spent the last two decades driving a cab in his home town of Middlesbrough. Next month, Snookered, his first stage play, embarks on a national tour, including a run at the Bush. It tells the story of four young men on a night out to commemorate the death of a friend. Here, he talks to Jo Caird about his late start in the arts…
It was serendipity that started me writing.
I was cabbing at the time and I heard a promo for a competition that Radio 5 Live were running about short stories with a sporting theme. I’d just bought a computer so I wrote this story about two young Pakistani guys who go and watch Middlesbrough play for the first time. I honestly thought that somebody at the BBC was going to read it and throw it in the bin, but I got a phone call six weeks later to say I’d been shortlisted and they were going to produce it.
A few months after that I got an email requesting pitches for one-off episodes for a BBC TV series. I sent them an outline, they commissioned it and the 15-minute piece went out. That’s when I thought I might actually be able to become a writer: I’d done two things and they’d both been produced. I got nothing after that for about a year and a half but I’d really got the bug. I thought, even if I don’t make a career out of it, it’ll be a great hobby.
I started being proactive: taking courses and reading books about writing. I ended up at a theatre company, Tamasha, on a writing course, where I got the idea for Snookered. I didn’t have any experience of theatre until that point – just the occasional pantomime when I was a kid. It was a bit of a revelation that you could tell stories in that way.
Tamasha was fantastic in opening up this world and giving me the tools to tell those stories. They took us to the theatre as part of the course and since then I’ve devoured it, reading plays by other writers and seeing lots as well.
I always felt that writing is what other people do. Looking back, I always had that bug to be creative. I was a cab driver – I still am – so people used to tell me things and I’d think, “that would make a fantastic play” or “he’d be a great character in a film”. It was there in the background, bubbling away.
I think if I’d started writing when I was young, I’d have had a lack of experience of what people go through. I’m naturally inquisitive and chatty so all the different jobs I’ve done – cabbing, working in a video shop, running a restaurant – have given me a taste of so many different types of lives. One of the great things that people have said about Snookered is that it’s about young men that happen to be British Pakistani, but first and foremost it’s about young men.
I sat and worked out one night that I’d had 160,000 conversations with people. I’ve been a cabbie a long time. I have all these ideas in my head that I want to express so it’s a case of finding the time and the opportunity. I just want to do everything. I’ve got a great idea for a movie. I want to write a sitcom: Steptoe and Son in a halal butcher’s. I want to write a musical: I’ve got a great idea about this Pakistani guy who wants to be a soul singer. I’m really ambitious in what I want to do, it’s just whether I’ll be able to do it or not. But I’m happy with where I am so far.
Snookered tours the UK from 2 February (today) to 5 April. For tour dates and booking information, please visit Tamasha theatre company’s website.
Snookered images by Nye Williams.