Evening Conversations: Sudha Bhuchar’s telling of navigating being a multicultural mum to her millennial sons.

Nila Sinead Sandhu, Journalism Undergraduate, University of Roehampton

Bhuchar boulevard presents a satirical and candid one woman monologue performed by Sudha Bhuchar.

This very raw soliloquy begins with Bhuchar applying her makeup and joking that her eyeliner shade ‘stubborn brown’ is fitting. The rawness of this introduction captivated the audience in a way that broke down the fourth wall, and the monologue went from performance to conversation. The audience was intently listening to Bhuchar’s every word.

For most people, a one woman-hour-long-monologue would seem a bold idea, in terms of promoting audience engagement. However, Sudha Bhuchar held their attention throughout the performance. There were not only frequent barrels of laughter but also reflective silences as Bhuchar discusses sensitive topics such as her father’s untimely death and her struggles on her first days in a British school.

The wholesome relationship between mother and sons is perpetuated and instilled as a theme throughout, as Bhuchar reels off many humorous anecdotes, explicitly exploring and questioning their generational differences. Harping on an inter-generational competition within her household, touching on how her sons were born into a ‘lost-generation’ whom compete for whose life is worst. Bhuchar’s light-hearted analysis does not stop at her inter-generational household, but she also notes how her household is multicultural, joking that the only Indian her sons know are the food names, sarcastically teasing that they should ‘translate for the UN.’

She finishes by performing her favourite and most calming yoga pose, accompanied by a beautiful origin story of the pose about being at peace. This final demonstration reminds everyone in the room that the past hour had not been performer vs audience, but that the fourth wall was never implemented and the audience could walk away feeling as though they had just had an ‘Evening Conversation.’

Sudha Bhuchar dedicated this performance to its director Phillip Osment, whom sadly passed away prior to its completion. Bhuchar said: ‘His memory is tied up in it.’