After his wonderful debut play The P Word, Waleed Akhtar brings us an unusual play about a platonic relationship.  Neelam (Mariam Haque) and Zaid (Nathaniel Curtis) meet at school and are drawn together because they have the same Pakistani heritage and because they both aspire to be playwrights. Zaid knows that he is gay and Neelam is the first person he comes out to.

They meet again at university and together their dialogue is realistic and compelling as they exchange their life experiences.  Later they both work in a call centre and in a local cinema, where Neelam wonders how difficult it is to swallow popcorn! A girlfriend whom Neelam confided in at school betrays her trust and ruins her reputation in the Ilford community they call Mini-Pakistan. 

The pressure on Neelam from her family is to get married to a Muslim and Pakistani man and the pressure on Zaid from his family is to show evidence of being heterosexual. So they both have family conflict which they can share with each other but as their other lives develop so their friendship starts to fade.

Zaid, who at 15 had a relationship with a man more than twice his age who picked him up from school in a car, frequents gay clubs but finds only casual encounters until he meets Jeremy (Anthony Holden).  Jeremy is a lecturer in Creative Writing and has judged plays from both.