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Grief in glitter: Shamama Fatima on queerness, ghosts and finding her voice at the Fringe

Richard Beck Richard Beck
10 Jul 2025

Shamama Fatima is a Pakistani-born, Edinburgh-based director and performer whose work explores memory, identity and intimacy through metaphorical, emotionally driven theatre. She trained at Queen Margaret University and has worked on productions across the UK and internationally.

Somewhere between Karachi and the Fringe, I found a language of my own

Here, she writes about discovering a means of communication – and the work she is directing at the Edinburgh Fringe, Play On.

As a little girl in Karachi, I had so many stories swirling in my head, I was certain they would tumble out the moment I opened my mouth. But somehow, they never did. Instead, I would freeze, tongue-tied, overwhelmed by the sheer noise of the world and my inability to make sense of it in any one language. Urdu, English, and a splash of Arabic from school – all colliding in my brain like impatient traffic. How do you tell a story when you can’t even choose a lane?

I came to Edinburgh to study film. I imagined myself behind the camera, safe from the spotlight. But the theatre had other plans. In the rehearsal room, I discovered a language I didn’t have to speak fluently to feel understood. It let me say things without really saying them out loud. Let me show the inside of a character without having to explain them.

The question that has quietly shaped my life and all of my work is deceptively simple: who am I? Some people figure it out in pre-school, others not until their deathbed. For me, the search has been messier. Identity in the UK often gets flattened into tidy boxes: brown woman, foreigner, other. But I am more than that. I am a daughter. I am neurodivergent. I am queer. I am curious, chaotic, thoughtful. I direct because I am still trying to make sense of all of it.

Much of my early work has centred around characters trying to do the same. In one of my first pieces, two women shared their grief through cold-water swimming. In another, two ex-lovers were trapped in a time loop, reliving the same day over and over until they finally chose to share their truths. I like creating surreal worlds for very real feelings. It’s not realism, but it is emotionally true. I guess you could say my theatrical style is about turning the inner life outward: memory as soundscape, guilt as choreography, grief in glitter.

I met Erin Boulter, the writer of Play On, through a social media post. (I know. Very Gen Z of us.) We met for coffee and ended up talking for hours about inheritance, Shakespeare and grief. She had written this beautifully strange dark comedy about two estranged siblings who get locked in an escape room and are forced to confront their grief, their privilege, and a couple of Shakespearean ghosts from their past. I said yes before the oat milk even curdled.

Play On blends Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Twelfth Night with a kind of pop-culture irreverence that feels both hilarious and devastating. There are references for the purists, but it’s also made for people who’ve only ever encountered Shakespeare through TikToks. At its core, it’s about identity: Viola becomes Sebastian (Ash); Lea rediscovers her passion; nothing is said outright, and yet everything is felt. That’s the world I love to build – where the subtext is the text, where silence tells you everything.

Before I take on any project, I ask myself three questions: Why this story? Why now? Why theatre? With Play On, the answers came easily. It’s a story about how families avoid the truth until they’re locked in a room with it. It’s a story about queerness, about what we inherit and what we unlearn. And it could only be told through theatre – live, breathing, a little messy, always human.

Somewhere between Karachi and the Fringe, I found a language of my own. It doesn’t always use words, but it always tells the truth.

Richard Beck

Richard Beck

A graduate in theology and education, Richard acted and contributed to dance, drama and music productions throughout his teaching career. He joined Broadway Baby in 2014 and is now our Editor-in-Chief. He usually disappears to warmer climes for the winter to pursue his passion for travel.

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