Three teenage girls forge an unlikely friendship. They challenge each other with Tik Toks, beat-boxing, rap and dance routines… They just want to build their social media empire, or study astronomy, or become as good a rapper as Megan Thee Stallion. But they undergo a political awakening when they realise that what you say – even what you think – is viewed very differently depending who you are.
When they find themselves the target of the state surveillance ‘Prevent’ programme, they have to fight back. Friendships fracture and loyalties are tested as they pursue different avenues of resistance. In an era when dissent is being criminalised, what does it take to speak up?
Sonali Bhattacharyya’s Liberation Squares is a riotous, funny play told through the technicolour lens of three British Muslim schoolgirls. Inspired by graphic novels, hip hop, pop culture and real-world youth activists, Liberation Squares asks what it takes for young Muslim women today to be the heroes of their own stories.
It is premiered by Fifth Word and Nottingham Playhouse on a UK tour in 2024.
