Norm and Ahmed

Norm and Ahmed is a 1968 Australian play by Alex Buzo.

Norm and Ahmed
Written byAlex Buzo
CharactersNorm
Ahmed
Date premiered1968
Place premieredOld Tote Theatre, Sydney[1]
Original languageEnglish
SubjectRace relations
GenreDrama

Plot

A middle aged war veteran, Norm, has an encounter with a Pakistani student Ahmed, at a bus stop one night

Censorship controversy

The play script originally ended with the line "fucking' boong". This was changed to "bloody boong" for its debut production at the Old Tote, which was directed by Jim Sharman.

In April 1969 the play was performed at the Twelfth Night Theatre in Brisbane, using the writer's original line. After one performance, two policemen arrested Norman Staines, the actor who said the line, on a charge of using obscene language in public. Staines was set free on bail and continued to use the line. After a series of trials which went all the way to the High Court, the conviction was quashed.[2]

At a performance of the play at La Mama Theatre in Melbourne in 1969 the actor playing Norm was summoned and ordered to appear in court. The actor, and director Graeme Blundell, were later fined.[2][3]

Adaptations

The play was adapted as a short feature in 1988 with Max Cullen as Norm and Alex Pinder as Ahmed.[4]

gollark: Oh, never mind, I just moved it to a different folder.
gollark: Great!
gollark: Also, I seem to have unfathomably lost a program I need, this is HIGHLY troubling.
gollark: I think that if your system can't be deployed without being used everywhere at once, it's utter bees and should not occur.
gollark: Living standards have still consistently increased for pretty much everyone for ages, governments are the ones going to war and covertly operating and you can't really get around this given the existence of scarcity, worldwide extreme poverty is declining and literacy is increasing, etc.

References
  1. Original production details at AusStage
  2. Leslie Rees, Australian Drama in the 1970s, Angus & Robertson, 1978 p 256-257
  3. Details of La Mama production at AusStage
  4. Norm and Ahmed at Screen Australia


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