Shownotes
Owning Our Stories - guest Sid Akbar
Jenn wilson
"All stories have a universality to them, because everybody will find a way to connect through their own lived experience.”— Sid Akbar
Jenn Wilson is joined by guest Sid Akbar. Sid Akbar (he/they) is a queer South Asian actor, writer, and theatre-maker, and the founder of Damaka Arts — a company dedicated to explosive, unapologetic storytelling that centres queer people of colour and intersectional lived experience in the North of England.
Episode Overview
In this powerful and deeply human conversation, Sid opens up about the journey that shaped him — from navigating cultural expectations within a traditional Muslim family in Bradford, to surviving domestic violence, a forced marriage as a teenager, and the lifelong process of reconciling seemingly conflicting identities.
Through theatre, Sid found both liberation and connection, using sci-fi influences and humour to transform trauma into an empowering creative force. This episode charts the development of his autobiographical show Besharam and the evolution of his perspective as an artist, activist, and storyteller creating space for queer South Asian voices.
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About Sid Akbar:
Sid Akbar is a Bradford-born actor, writer and theatre maker creating bold, autobiographical work rooted in his experience as a queer person of colour from a Muslim background. His work explores identity, family, queerness and belonging, blending humour with emotional honesty. His solo show Besharam [shame-LESS] premiered in 2023, and his new show Khandan (Family) – The Shame Generation premieres 11–13 June 2026 at Bradford Arts Centre.
Episode Takeaway
Sid’s story is a reminder that “irregularity” is often where truth, courage, and creativity live. By speaking his truth on stage, Sid breaks generational cycles of shame and silence — not only for himself, but for every audience member who sees a piece of themselves in his work. His commitment to authenticity, community, and compassionate storytelling shows what it means to take ownership of your narrative and build a life that feels like home.
Further Resources: links to offers from Irregular that are relevant to the episode
More about this episode:
- The origins of Damaka Arts and the meaning behind the name
- Growing up queer and South Asian in Bradford
- The emotional process behind creating Besharam
- Using sci-fi and Star Trek as a narrative frame
- The universality of coming-out stories beyond queer experience
- Navigating chosen family, biological family, and ADHD
- How representation on stage changes lives
- Sid’s upcoming show The Wrath of Kardaan (Bradford, June 2026)
Season 2 Episode 11
Transcripts
Jenn Wilson: Hi, everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Irregular Humans podcast with me, Jen Wilson. And my guest today is my very good friend, Sid Akbar. Hello, Sid!
Sid Akbar He/They: Hello!
Jenn Wilson: And Sid is an actor, a writer, a theater maker, and director of the company Damaka Arts, and I'm sure Sid will tell us a bit more about what Damaka Arts is and what it stands for in a minute. Sid and I have collaborated on work as Damaka Arts for a little while.
But I really wanted Sid to be a guest on this and share some of…
his story, and his journey, and what makes him a regular. So, Sid!
Sid Akbar He/They: Bye!
Jenn Wilson: You're welcome, darling. Tell us a bit about
You know, you, and the ways in which you are irregular.
Sid Akbar He/They: So, I'll just answer what DeMarka Arts is. So, DeMarka Arts is a queer theater company focusing on stories of queer people of color and intersectionality in the North, mainly through my own autobiographical experience. The company came about in 2022, when we started working on my coming out story, and it was the identity to the work that I wanted to make.
And now it's becoming this…
amazing queer entity that's, creating space and holding space for queer stories of people of color and intersectionality. So yeah, it's really, really exciting to be here.
Jenn Wilson: Yeah, and Damaka, remind me… Damaka, the word, is a Punjabi or Urdu word?
Sid Akbar He/They: I think it's either Punjabi or Urdu, or Hindi, and it means explosion, so I went in… I went, essentially, to make an explosion of queer work, from my lived experience.
Jenn Wilson: Yeah, and…
What people may not be getting, if they're listening to this on audio is that you are also a brown person.
Sid Akbar He/They: Oh yeah, I am brown, South Asian.
Jenn Wilson: The name Sid Akbar may suggest stuff, but, like, you are a Bradford lad, right? You were born and bred in Bradford. Your family is a fairly traditional Muslim family?
Sid Akbar He/They: Yes.
Jenn Wilson: And the show that we worked on in 2023, Besharam, which means shameless.
Sid Akbar He/They: cap.
Jenn Wilson: was your coming out story, and people talked about it being a really brave thing that you did, and I know you don't see it as brave, but for the people that don't know you, and don't know your work.
Tell us about that story, and why you wanted to tell it.
Sid Akbar He/They: I think…
At the time, a lot of things happened in my life, that pushed me into the spotlight of wanting to
just tell… to tell my story. Not just, like I said, not everything's about… I don't like minimizing by using the word just, but I needed to tell this story because I was propelled into a position where life…
happened, and I was tired and exhausted of carrying two different identities, or several identities, and not knowing who I was.
Jenn Wilson: Mmm.
Sid Akbar He/They: And fighting against that, and fighting against shame, or, being judged by shame. So in 2022, a lot of things happened. I,
came out of a domestic violent relationship with my ex-partner, and prior to that, my family found out about my sexuality through social media. Not that I was hiding it, I mean, everybody that knows me knows, like, and I always get that.
that question from my friends, going, how did your family not know? I'm like, I have no idea. And I think, they are very traditional.
And, and very set in their ways of, being Pakistani in Bradford, Muslim, caring about what other people think, the community, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think that's what my… my parents are from a different generation, and they migrated here from Pakistan in the late 70s, early 80s.
And…
I mean, they know now, and that's another journey that I'm going on at the minute, and it's not all smooth sailing, but I think me coming out…
And doing that story in a very irregular way, has set up conversations and set up a path to…
Figure out how these two pieces of my life fit.
Jenn Wilson: Ew.
Sid Akbar He/They: So that being Muslim, queer, Northern, with a traditional Pakistani family,
and reassessing that relationship, in a way where the terms are… the terms are dictated by me, and… and I'm in charge
Of that, and in the captain's seat of…
Defining what that means to me going forward.
Jenn Wilson: Yeah, absolutely. The captain's seat we can come back to in a minute, but the other thing that I think is really important about what you've always said to me about your work is
that…
you couldn't see that work when you needed to, when you were younger, or even now, there's not a lot of… of work that tells a queer Muslim
northern story.
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah, I think, you know, growing up,
Queer literature was very inaccessible at the time.
I was born in 88, do without information as you will. And, so there was a lot… I think I was in that generation of, like, things, you know, we saw the age of, you know, the internet age, and, things turning for more of the positives,
Although, I don't know how positive things are right now in the world, but that's a different conversation. So I never saw any people of color that, that were queer.
Or Brown, or even Northern. I never had any examples, never had any literature, didn't have anyone to speak to. I just navigated life through my own angsty teenage way.
And…
I think, you know… But I still turned out queer! You know, people, like, there's all these conversations about, you know, banning queer literature, trans literature, like that.
Jenn Wilson: Yes!
Sid Akbar He/They: people from becoming gay or queer. I did not have any literature, but I didn't think I saw it out. I went looking for it because I couldn't see it.
Jenn Wilson: I mean, you were… you were, of course, were at school when Section 28 was still in place.
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah.
Jenn Wilson: which was brought in to, Section 28, in case anyone listening doesn't know, is the law that was in place that Margaret Thatcher put in place, to stop, gay and lesbian representation… well, LGBTQ plus representation in, in, in literature and media inside of the education system, so…
And as… as once that act was repealed, what, you know, it was clear that
Queer people were there all the way through that time, and taking the literature away didn't stop queer people existing, so…
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah.
Jenn Wilson: It's a pointless thing to do.
Sid Akbar He/They: apartments.
Jenn Wilson: And yet, of course, we have current governments taking similar steps towards removing trans visibility from children in schools at the moment, and thinking that that's how it works, when clearly history shows it doesn't. But, I'll get off my soapbox for a minute.
So, yeah, you had that lack of representation in… in school and in the wider media, too. I mean, I guess… I mean, like, you weren't, you know, you were… you were…
Not, like, a traditional person in any way, so you've been.
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah.
Jenn Wilson: You know, you were watching Western culture, not, you know, you weren't, like, growing up with just Bollywood movies.
Sid Akbar He/They: Oh, and I think, you know, I just… I was just navigating life through my own lived experience. I mean, I never… I never fit it into…
a certain box, and I tried, trust me, I tried to be the good Muslim boy, you know, and do as my parents said, do the expectations, but I could never do it. I could never do it, and I think that radically changed for me at the age of 15, when I went through my forced marriage.
And that really brought the rebelliousness in me, and I think to this day, I'm still rebelling.
still, choosing me. I mean, we've talked about this in our conversations about being at the crossroads, and if it happens, I have either option A, choosing myself, option B, you know, sticking to whatever the thing
it is that I'm trying to, assess, figure out if it's working for me. And I think 2022
Actually, 2021 and 2022 were very… was the years, where the crossroads, where I found myself constantly at the crossroads.
Jenn Wilson: Yeah, where you kind of, like… Had the option of…
Going down the route of conforming to what
Culture and family were wanting from you, and the option of going
a different way. And the show, Basharam, that we made in 2023 really explored that, didn't it? We said about the captain's chair before.
In order to, sort of.
Tell that story that's actually a very emotional and difficult-to-hear story for people, and make it in a way that meant that people could find it accessible, and find the humor in it, and the lightness in it as well.
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah, I mean, it's a very Bradfordian story, because we opened the show by, Captain Sid, and I say Captain Sid because the show's obviously inspired by sci-fi and Star Trek, me being a massive Trekkie,
And I think that was one of my… one of my queer…
inspirations, or like, I think because Star Trek is very queer. Like, it always has been, and it's always been this positive outlook on the future, what, you know, where humanity could go to, like, into the stars, and exploring what's out there, and looking outward as opposed to inward.
Jenn Wilson: Yes, and all the different,
alien species that, you know, in the 60s, you know, Spock was, you know, the first officer of the old enterprise, and Uhura, a black guy.
Sid Akbar He/They: with Shatner and the shell.
Jenn Wilson: Hmm.
Sid Akbar He/They: So I think that really held… using that frame held, space for me to tell my story in a very humoral… humorous way, by balancing the trauma, because I… we went into this process, and I think one of the things I wanted to say, I didn't want it to be trauma porn, I didn't want it to be something that, you know, oh no, we feel sorry. It was more about finding hope.
And, you know, looking at the hope through all that I've been through.
And especially in Bradford, and growing up queer, and in Bradford, it's always been difficult navigating those spheres in Bradford. Although, oh, Bradford has always been queer! You know, especially, you know, when we did the Bavarian installation, like, a few months ago, and me learning about, you know, what was out there in the 80s, and…
Jenn Wilson: Yeah, I mean, Bradford's always had that sort of countercultural thing.
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah.
Jenn Wilson: And although it might not have the kind of…
funky visibility of a city like Manchester, where you live, and Canal Street and all that, there's always been pockets of queer culture here, absolutely, yeah.
Sid Akbar He/They: Oh, I think… so that's what…
you know, I'm going to bring that show to Bradford, and do it in Bradford, in front of a Bradford-based audience, in front of a South Asian audience, to have an honest conversation, and to, you know, shake off the shackles of shame, and just have a, you know, and just sit down, and speak my truth, and be very unapologetic about it.
I think I had enough…
push back on my life where I had enough, and I needed to speak my truth, and I needed to step in my own light, and Braffil Producing Hub offered that
that opportunity when I saw, Create Your Own Work Fund, and I just went for it, and then that's how we met. That's how we met, and we just got on, like, a house on fire, and everything else is, you know, is history.
So, I think that… that opportunity really… refied my voice.
found a way to channel my stories and channel that voice, my voice, to tell the stories that I wanted to tell, to represent
define representation within myself, because I always want to see it, but now I feel like I am that representation. And that's really hard for me to process, because it's really weird, because I just want to tell stories, and I just want to,
I want to tell stories, I want to connect with audiences that look like me, and audiences that
Struggle to find their voice, or struggle to,
see themselves reflected on stage, or connect with stories, but it's not all… it's not all… it's not only about me connecting with the… connecting with the audience, it's also the audience connecting with me. So, I don't feel alone, like, in this mad world that we call life, in this journey that we call life.
Jenn Wilson: Because it did both those things, didn't it, Basharam? And also the…
scratch performances and work-in-progress showings towards the new show, which we can talk about in a minute.
of both… Providing that, point of connection for…
queer and South Asian, queer and POC, global majority people who have not seen their story told. And also.
Bringing queer and white people, or… or white and disabled people, or, you know, people from different…
We've all got our own different mixtures of…
heritage, privilege, marginalisation, et cetera, going on in our lives. It really spoke to a lot of people, didn't it?
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah, I mean…
Jenn Wilson: story of… Coming out is kind of like a…
for me, it's that thing I'm saying when I'm saying, be more irregular, that, that, stripping back layers of masks of being yourself.
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah, I mean, I think that's a massive… even though there was a very specificity to the story, there was a massive universality to it, because I was surprised with how many
people I connected with. Oh, I mean, I don't know how many people the story connected with,
because I set myself great. I wanted to do it in… this is my audience, South Asian, queer, intersectional, I want to speak to them, I want to connect with them, and then one night, we had an audience full of white people, and I was like, oh, wow, okay, brilliant! And then next day, we had, like, a mixed audience, and then we also did our, safe space sharing to a group.
of QTPOC, audience members that could… that may have felt that they couldn't come to a public sharing. And I took a lot… a lot from that, and I took… alert a lot from, my audiences, and knowing that, you know.
All stories have a universality to it, because everybody will find a way to connect with that story through their own, lived experience, and what means… what they find, or what meaning they find within the work.
Jenn Wilson: Hmm.
Sid Akbar He/They: So I… I think that… I think, for me, that's helped me not get so bogged down with, this is the audience I need to take to… and I think it's more about, I tell the story, and the right audience will show up.
Jenn Wilson: Yeah.
Sid Akbar He/They: And the right people will be there to listen and digest and share the space.
Jenn Wilson: I think that's, a really interesting point. You know, a lot of people… a lot of my listeners are people from the business community, and a lot of people are teaching
who's your ideal client? Who's your ideal audience member? Who is it you're trying to talk to? And that has its… has its importance and its uses, but also…
Speaking your truth, and being totally your authentic self, and letting…
that be magnetic, you know? It will draw certain people in, and it will push certain people away, and that's okay.
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah, yeah, and, now we're working on the next show, Cheeky Bug, The Wrath of Cardan, and we're looking at,
Chose a family and biological family through my lived experience, and… and…
what that means to me, and how I'm navigating that. I think in 2022, I was very sensitive to, people.
communities. I think because I lost my immediate family in a metaphorical way where I could not show up and be myself, and I had to pull back and take care of me first. And then I had this sense of desperation of connecting to people and making my own family, but what I found out was that I was…
so desperate to connect with some… to people that people were letting me down. And not go through, nor thought through of their own. People are fickle.
it's… it's my expectations on… on people, and on… on friends, and me wanting to find my own family, and find my own chosen family, and I was… I remember it was, like, it was some… it was such urgency that I needed to, like, I need you, I need you, I need you, I need you, I need my… I need my… I need to redefine what my safe space is, or…
What my community looks like to me.
So…
that was difficult. I think I had a lot of breakdowns during that year. Yeah, and then came the diagnosis of my ADHD, which explained a lot.
But I think where I am now is, you know, there is that need of telling this story and, you know, trying to find support to tell the stories. I mean, funded out there is very, very next… very difficult to find, and ascertain, but we finally…
M…
Jenn Wilson: who would be Arts Council England.
Sid Akbar He/They: I was gonna say, can we announce it?
Jenn Wilson: This podcast won't… it'll be public information by the time.
Sid Akbar He/They: Have you got the Arts Council funding, yay! So which has enabled me to get the resource to, you know, be able to pay the resources, pay artists. Me and Jen are working together on this again, to really…
give time to stories that matter, and… and I have a lot of stories that I want to share and create and connect with people, and I think there's a need out there, and still, yeah, we do see
we're starting to see, you know, small amounts of representation, but I never see myself reflected in my stories. It's either in drag, which is great and beautiful and amazing, but something that's…
every day, something that's, you know, navigating through life, finding your voice, and finding how you fit into the world. Because I, I mean, I don't see myself being in drag, even though I wouldn't be reluctant to go into drag, it's…
I think it's more about human connection.
You know, and… Finding that…
Space where we can live without shame, and… Just be our authentic selves.
Jenn Wilson: Yeah.
Yep.
Sid Akbar He/They: Absolute storytelling.
Jenn Wilson: Yeah, and I think that, you know, if we're talking about the kind of work that… the kind of thing that this podcast talks about a lot is, like, being the change you want to see in the world.
You're literally doing that on a stage.
You're literally, like, you could have told your story… you're a writer, too. You could have told your story in any number of ways. You could have… and you have, somewhat, you know, you've written some blogs, and you've done, you know, there's lots of ways to share your story, but putting it onto a stage, and inviting an audience into that…
A lot of the audience at Bethram were like, you're so brave.
story, and I know you resisted that. Can you say anything about that?
About why you resisting.
Sid Akbar He/They: Why I resisted… The word BRAVE.
I think Brave, for me, is someone who is fighting for their life, someone who is,
at the forefront of life-or-death situations. Someone jumping in front of a bullet.
Jenn Wilson: So…
Sid Akbar He/They: on, you know, fighting through cancer, or any other terminal illnesses. I think… I don't know why…
I struggle with… well, I do struggle with that word, brave.
Because… I'm… telling a story, because I want to seek connection.
And I find it difficult to…
contextualize the word brave, because I think it's such a big word.
Jenn Wilson: Hmm.
Sid Akbar He/They: You know? Because it's all… because it's all so connected to…
The words connected to big things, like jumping in front of the bullet, like, you know.
Jenn Wilson: Yeah.
Sid Akbar He/They: You know, you know, fighting for your country, or…
you know, maybe I have a very, specific Interpretation of what…
Well, from what I've experienced, from what I've seen, from what I, heard, read, watched on TV, so…
Jenn Wilson: But I think what other people are seeing when they use the word brave about your work is…
that in some ways, it is a battle to exist. You know, to exist as your whole self, and be seen that way, and accepted that way, and to cope with those people that will reject you, and…
to keep the door open to your family, I know that you are slowly rebuilding a relationship there as well, from, you know, from what's been a difficult place. And also, that…
It's brave to…
to build those spaces, those safer spaces where other people can be invited into that. I think of them as brave spaces, and, rather than.
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah, I like the word, brave, brave spaces, or safer spaces.
Jenn Wilson: Hmm.
Not everyone has the courage to put themselves out there and be that visible, I guess. That's what people have seen.
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah, I never imagined myself to be in that position of telling stories, and never in… and never in my life, and this is honest to, like, Lady Gaga, or whatever queer artist out there, or queer god,
I never expected…
I saw myself in a position where I'd be coming out, and never mind coming out on stage, you know? Like, it was never…
I never thought, never a seed. Yes, I went into acting at a young age, because it was a way for me to escape. I could… I could pretend to be somebody else.
Live that life and walk a different pair of shoes than being in mine.
Jenn Wilson: Damn.
Sid Akbar He/They: Because, you know, I did, you know, I self-harmed when I was in my teenage years, you know, going through the forced marriage, seeing domestic violence in my household with my mum and my dad,
You know, just so much stuff. So it was just easier to…
Step into somebody else's shoes and live a different…
Jenn Wilson: Someone else's story.
Sid Akbar He/They: Tell somebody else's story, yeah.
Jenn Wilson: There's that point at which you suddenly decided to tell your own.
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah, I think…
I think there was… I needed to breathe. I felt like I was being suffocated, I felt like I was drowning, that I couldn't…
keep up the lie anymore. I couldn't be… be happy-go-lucky Sid. You know, everybody that met me would… who… who'd meet me would see this, you know.
this persona of me, you know, who's always smiling, laughing, joking, being silly, and not really letting people in, you know, because they… they probably would walk away and think, oh, he's great, he's lovely! Oh, he's having a… he's such a lovely person, and he's such a laugh… he's such a laugh?
And not consider, like, the battles that I was dealing with, or going through. And I think I just didn't want to…
Maybe I… I think maybe it was because I didn't know how to…
Share them, share that side of me, or be vulnerable, or how to, Face…
to face it, I think it was just much more easier just to pretend to be somebody else, essentially putting my head in the sand. But there comes a time when you have to lift your head out of the sand and look at the wider world. Yeah.
Jenn Wilson: And I absolutely love that, through the use of science fiction, and this idea of, kind of, paths not taken, parallel choices, you know, the crossroads you were talking about before, you arrived at, in the old show, creating characters, one of which was from a fictional utopian place.
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah.
Jenn Wilson: But the other one of which is, if you'd never come out.
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah.
Jenn Wilson: multiply
And the what-if if you'd never come out, and the compassion that you could display for a man who would… was stuck in a closet, and finding that difficult, that is a person that you used to be, and that you could have been. But making that choice to not be that…
However brave, in inverted commas, it might seem.
is actually the only choice you could make in the end, I guess.
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah, I think…
I… it was either… because I could see… we did it that way, because I… I wanted to see different realities on stage. And Sadiq, which is my full name,
was a character that I… was a person I nearly became, you know? You know, of like…
you know, going down the path of marrying the opposite sex, and doing a job that I didn't want to do, and… and these… but these… these… I mean, my story's not unique in that way.
Because I see… I've met those people, and I've met those men who are…
Struggling to live the authentic life for whatever reason, whether that is expectations of family, whether that's work, whether that's general society as a whole, whether that's a difference in generations,
So, for me… I had to…
I had to show compassion to Sadiq. I had to… and there was a long time I was angry at him. Like, I was very angry at him. I was very, like… I didn't want to be that person, I didn't want to become…
my siblings. I didn't want to become this, this version of myself that was very masculine or,
problematic, and toxic, and, you know, damaging other people's lives, because I haven't got my, shit together.
So… Yeah, but it's… it's… it was more about… throw in… You know,
a rankout, I don't know what you call them, you know?
Overboard a ship and help him.
Jenn Wilson: Oh, a life ring!
Sid Akbar He/They: Life Spring, life spring.
Jenn Wilson: Safety, yeah, a buoyancy ring of…
Sid Akbar He/They: Whatever was the question.
Jenn Wilson: You know what you mean.
Sid Akbar He/They: Because it's like… it's not about, like, we touch about the show, we talk about in the show how it's not a choice to be, you know.
How you identify, whether that's bisexual, whether that's gay, whether that's queer, but the choice is about whether you want to be in or out.
Jenn Wilson: Hmm.
Sid Akbar He/They: And for me, I… for me, it got to the point where I had to…
I had to get… I had to get… I had to let go of that version,
Because that's two different people.
that I was trying to, manage, there was.
Jenn Wilson: Sit.
Sid Akbar He/They: Sadiq. You know, sit up with friends, Sadiq at home, going to the mosque.
You know, going to after-school mosque when I was a kid, going to religious gatherings, going to family gatherings, Eid,
And I felt, like, a sense of restriction there, and a sense of…
I felt oppressed in certain ways, and I'm not speaking,
generally, for everybody else, this is my lived experience where I felt like I couldn't be myself, because culturally, there were expectations from my parents, especially from my dad.
how he wanted his kids to be, and, you know, my dad had a lot of expectations, a lot, he wanted me to become, this expert on
Quran, praying five times a day, going to gatherings, you know, doing everything. Not even the basics, just everything, being, like, the pillar of community, and, you know, reflected this image to the community that, you know, we are the family to be.
But for me, it wasn't me. I've always felt different, I always felt, unique and irregular.
growing up, I mean, how can I not? You know, I'm a brown boy, based in Bradford, born in Bradford, born in England, born in Yorkshire. My partner says I've got a broader Yorkshire accent than him.
And I'm like, get on, never!
You know, people, like, speak to me on the phone, and I say, hi, my name's Sid, and I walk in, and they're like, oh, it's a brown person!
Jenn Wilson: You know?
Sid Akbar He/They: Also, like, how could I not be more regular? I've had all these experiences, and my lived experiences, and growing to be the person that I am.
And then finding myself making work that I want to make, because I'm… because I never saw it reflected back on stage or on screen, coloring storybooks.
And it feels good to be in control of your own destiny. You know, I always felt like my destiny or my fate was dictated by other people, parents, by my teachers, by my Islamic teachers, by my siblings, pressure of, like, marriage, oh my god, we need to get married. Why do we need to get married? Like, why? I'm always like, what is… why? Why is there such urgency of getting married?
hurried, like, leave me alone, like…
I'll decide when and if I want to get married. I mean, I've got an engagement ring on my, finger, and that's because, obviously, like, I chose to accept the proposal from my partner, Richard.
But we're not placing any urgency or whisking away with cotton pants and getting married on a beach in Santorini.
Jenn Wilson: You're building that extended queer family.
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah.
Jenn Wilson: As well as restoring those links to your, original biological family.
Sid Akbar He/They: Good.
Jenn Wilson: Pouring that in your new show, I would love to talk for longer and longer about this, but I'm really conscious that, we're kind of running out of time on this episode. But I absolutely…
love you, Sid, you know that, and I love your story, and the way… the tiny ways in which I've been part of supporting you on that journey, of more and more coming out, and more and more telling your story, which has been a real privilege for me.
And maybe we'll talk about that in the bonus episode. But your, new show, The Wrath of Kandan, is coming in June this year in Bradford, isn't it?
Sid Akbar He/They: Yeah, yeah, Bradford.
Jenn Wilson: So around about the time this episode comes out, you know, there'll be more information available about that, and we can share it with people. In the meantime, if people want to follow along and find out more about you, and your story, and your, the work you're making, whereabouts on the internet can they find you?
Sid Akbar He/They: I think the best one would be,
at DeMarka Arts, so that's my theater company, or identity, or whatever you want to call it.
Jenn Wilson: The explosion.
Sid Akbar He/They: explosion of queerness and queer work, at DeMarka Arts on Instagram, if they follow me on there. So that's, D-H-A-M-A…
K,
A-R-T-S, Tabata Arts.
Jenn Wilson: Yep.
Sid Akbar He/They: to give me a cheeky little follow, and that's where I keep post… keep everyone posted on development of new work, on what I'm doing, in terms of queer stories, and my own stories. I think that would be the best place to keep up to date, and get involved.
Please hit me up.
Jenn Wilson: Thanks, Sid. Thanks so much for being a guest on Irregular Humans. Sid Akbar, everyone, I hope that you will give Sid and Damaka Arts a follow, and thanks for being here today, Sid.
Sid Akbar He/They: Thank you for having me!
