Pravesh Kumar MBE [1] is a director and writer working in theatre and film and is the Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Rifco Theatre Company. [2]
Kumar grew up in Slough, Berkshire, in the United Kingdom, and attended Langley College, where he was the only student of colour on the performing arts course that year. [3] Kumar then went on to train as an actor at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts. [3]
He is the brother of Andy Kumar. [4]
Kumar worked in the Hindi cinema industry for a decade. [2]
In 1999 Kumar, along with Ajay Chhabra, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti and Harvey Virdi, [5] created and staged a comedy sketch show called Airport 2000 – Asians in Transit, which was partly inspired by Kumar's time working as a British Airways check-in agent. [6] It was the success of this production that made Kumar realise that there was a real hunger amongst British South Asian audiences for authentic stories. He describes the creation of this show as the "accidental birth of Rifco". [6]
Rifco Theatre Company (known then as Rifco Arts) mounted another show the following year, Bollywood 2000 – Yet Another Love Story, a sketch show riffing on Bollywood's formulaic clichés. [7] This was Kumar's theatrical directorial debut. [8] Kumar would go on to write and direct a plethora of plays and musicals as the Artistic Director of Rifco Theatre Company, including The Deranged Marriage, There's Something About Simmy, Britain's Got Bhangra and Frankie Goes to Bollywood. [9]
In 2011 the Rifco musical Britain's Got Bhangra, written and directed by Kumar, won the People's Favourite Musical award at The Offies. [10]
In June 2022, Little English premiered at the London Indian Film Festival – a film written and directed by Kumar, based on his play There's Something About Simmy. [11] The film would go on to have a limited nationwide release from 17 March 2023. [12]
In July 2022, Kumar was awarded an MBE for his contribution to British Theatre. [1]
In 2024, Frankie Goes to Bollywood, a musical that Kumar had been working on for several years alongside composer Niraj Chag and songwriter Tasha Taylor-Johnson, toured the UK. [13] It was a co-production with Watford Palace Theatre and HOME Manchester. [14]