The Boy at the Back of the Class

Since it was published in 2018, Onjali Q. Rauf's The Boy at the Back of the Class, the tale of a young Syrian refugee who arrives in a UK school, has sold over half a million copies and won a slew of prizes including the Waterstones Children's Book Prize. A film is on the cards starring Jason Isaacs and Vanessa Redgrave, but first theatre audiences can experience a stage adaptation, written for the stage by playwright and journalist Nick Ahad.

Rauf's book tells the story of Ahmet, a young Syrian boy separated from his family who arrives at Alexa's school only able to speak Kurdish. This doesn't prevent them from becoming friends and hatching a plan to reunite Ahmet with his family, an adventure that takes them all the way to Buckingham Palace.

An important story

Ahad was thrilled to have the opportunity to adapt it – ‘the book is beautiful and really moving’ – but also mindful of how timely the story was in respect of the government's dehumanising rhetoric around refugees. ‘It feels like we've spent 10 years, if not more, being bombarded with a single narrative about refugees and asylum seekers,’ says Ahad who grew up in Keighley with a Bangladeshi father and English mother. ‘And let's be frank, when we're talking about refugees and asylum seekers, we mean brown people. We're talking about people from brown countries.’ Theatre has the power to counter those narratives, he says. Critic Theo Bosanquet, writing in WhatsOnStage, called his adaptation ‘a much-needed empathy machine for a country that is in danger of losing its moral compass.’ The idea of theatre as an ‘empathy machine’ is one that resonates with Ahad. ‘I don't think there's anything more powerful than that immediate connection you get from being in a room with people in communion with the same story.’

When adapting the book with a younger audience in mind he was careful never to patronise them. The characters are nine years old, he says, but ‘I probably had in mind a slightly older age range, maybe 13/14 year olds, because I feel like those are the ones that are really going to understand the takeaway of this message.’ There were jokes and references for the adults too, he says. The show uses the phrase ‘stop the boats.’ ‘It was great watching on press night as all the adults laughed along knowingly. At least they recognise the environment that I'm talking about.’

Cultivating empathy

There were other challenges specific to adapting Rauf's book. Ahmet doesn't speak English for the first half of the story. ‘The biggest problem for me with the text is that Ahmet doesn't have his own voice. And I thought it was important when we put him on stage that he has a voice.’ The Boy at the Back of the Class is also an adventure story, he stresses, saying: ‘The kids go on a big adventure.’ He credits director Monique Touko with capturing some of the narrative's more kinetic elements, particularly a boisterous football match – performed without a ball. If you can make people believe there's a ball there, you can also make them believe they're in Buckingham Palace, says Ahad. ‘The power of theatre and imagination combined to do something really powerful.’

© MANUEL HARLAN
Zoe Zak, Farshid Rokey, Priya Davdra and Joe McNamara

Ahad repeatedly returns to the theme of empathy, that when we're talking about refugees, we're talking about children fleeing war and conflict, and how that gets forgotten. ‘When we saw the little body of Aylan Kurdi washed up on the beach, we felt, oh wow, that could be our child. And we forgot that. Within a year we had Nigel Farage standing in front of a poster of brown men saying they're going to invade this place and the narrative switched, just like that.’

Warm reviews

The show's been warmly reviewed by the critics but for Ahad, one response stood out. A carefully composed letter in a child's writing explaining how, while they didn't know much about refugees before they saw the show, it had taught them about the power of kindness and friendship and ‘will change the way I think forever.’ You can't really top a review like that says Ahad.

Having watched the show with a school audience in attendance, at the Rose Theatre in Kingston where the show opened and seen the enthusiastic way they reacted to Ahmet's story, Ahad expresses concern at the way in which the arts has been deprioritised by the government. Having the opportunity to see work on stage while at school can be transformative, he says. It was for him. ‘When I was growing up, my mom was a cleaner and my dad was a bus driver. The only reason I do what I do is because when I was nine, I had an amazing head teacher who took me to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. There is a direct line from that trip to what I do today.’

‘But it's not just future playwrights we're losing,’ he says, ‘we're also losing the opportunity for them to be impacted by the empathy machine.’

The Boy at the Back of the Class is touring the UK until 8th June 2024.

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