Review: High Street by Nida Vohra

Nida Vohra's production of High Street captures the audience the moment we take our seats. On Saturday 19th September, we faced a cleverly built corner shop on Croydon's High Street, with England's favourite crisps stacked high and a newspaper stand in the corner. In the opposite corner, a prayer mat sits beneath an Islamic tapestry, a key characteristic that customers rarely notice. When the lights dim and set and sound transport you to a specific time and place, you know the story will be authentic.

Muffled reggae plays, and we meet Terri, played by the full-of-life Emma Stannard. As she dances and chats away, she feels like someone you've met many times walking down a high street. Stannard captures a foundational figure of the Croydon community. Sanjay Batra does the same as Malik, who instantly feels like everyone's favourite uncle, with unapologetic defiance in every delivery.

Though completely different, Terri and Malik share a close bond. Malik code-switches between English and Urdu around her, and she pokes back like a daughter nagging her dad. The shop is struggling. Malik keeps receiving the wrong deliveries but refuses to change supplier because he has "known him for a long time, don't know anyone cheaper." Yet beneath his harmless demeanour lies genius. Terri and Malik break the fourth wall to borrow a phone from an audience member, leading to a breakthrough: a charger that fully charges a phone in under a minute.

Terri's story is the play's heart. She is a homeless woman navigating addiction and social worker appointments, escorted out of a make-up shop after using all the testers. She is quick to apologise, as many temporarily displaced people are, often following it with a joke to put everyone else at ease. They try not to inconvenience anyone, though it is their own life that has become so inconvenient. It is Malik's big heart that steers her towards a new start.

Corner shops are pillars of our communities: places to swap news, buy on tick until payday and find a familiar face. Malik's shop is exactly that. As the writer and director, Nida reminds us that we are all the same, however different our upbringing; we are simply dealt different cards.

Presented at The Bridge House Theatre, 19 September 2026