“…candid, heartwarming, and at times challenging…”
Dial 1 For UK (Photo by Deven Ahire)
Dial 1 for UK by Mohit Mathur, York Theatre Royal
By Sean Sable
Much like being an actor, when you work as a writer, it is rarely the only job you do. Like a magpie, I will collect up pretty much any shiny bit of work that centres around the English language, and for the last seven years, one of my favourite writing-adjacent gigs has been teaching English to speakers of other languages (ESOL). It’s work that is challenging (my grammar police rank is somewhere around Chief Constable these days) but thoroughly enjoyable. I meet many people who have come to English from different avenues and countries, including, very commonly, the Indian subcontinent. These pupils are often seeking to improve their English to apply for jobs and university spaces here in the UK and, not infrequently, they are currently working in a customer service call centre.
When I hear them describe their work, it always strikes me as a particularly difficult type of invisible labour: adopting a more “acceptable” name, forever trying to minimise their accent, learning how to absorb the blows of frustrated callers. A number of those same workers eventually leave their call centre jobs to begin a new life in the UK, often finding that the arithmetic of immigration adds up to less than they expected. British society leans heavily on people from other cultures for caretaking roles, drawing from a deeper well of community and service in a kind of empathy transfusion, siphoning compassion in trade for the hope of greater opportunity. Yet, we are not always especially honest about that debt. Immigrants do the hard, emotional labour of caring for UK citizens whilst being regularly denied acceptance by the country they prop up, and I find the exploration of this narrative rich with opportunities to reflect on the human cost of this exchange. So, when I took my seat in the studio at York Theatre Royal for Mohit Mathur’s one-man show Dial 1 for UK, I was pleased to find a production that offers a complicated, lovable—and very human—face to the people this country would rather not think too hard about.
Developed through Vital Xposure’s Wellspring Writers Programme, which supports Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent writers, Dial 1 for UK received the Keep It Fringe grant and had a strong Edinburgh Festival Fringe run before beginning its current regional tour. Mathur is no stranger to the stage, and West End audiences may recognise him from Life of Pi at Wyndham’s Theatre. His credits include accessible Shakespeare with Flute Theatre and Welsh National Opera’s Migrations. Dial 1 for UK is his playwriting debut and is directed by Phil Willmott.
We meet Uday Kumar (known by the apt nickname UK) at what he believes is the start of the adventure of a lifetime. A late-twenties call centre worker from New Delhi, UK has spent twelve years fielding angry and panicked callers for a cryptocurrency helpline while filling his YouTube channel with aspirational footage of a life he has not yet lived. His 123 subscribers follow him as he makes the leap to England on a student visa. Yet his dreams of the “Square of the Trafalgar” and a place on an Advanced Accounting and Management course are soon dashed when he finds himself locked into a sponsored visa scam. Unrelentingly cheerful, UK tries to make it work, throwing himself into his caretaking job with gusto and befriending Major Robinson, a nonagenarian with dementia. Through a series of flashbacks and present-day dilemmas, we watch as our affable protagonist navigates complex moral choices in his struggle to make a home in a country he loves—but that does not love him back.
Dial 1 For UK (Photo by Deven Ahire)
Performing in the studio’s intimate black box, Mathur works against a large backdrop that functions as a kind of crime board: clippings, government forms and photographs covering it edge to edge, with a missing person poster in the middle. Almost immediately, we are told the play’s central question: where did UK go? Red ribbons extend outward from the board to framed photographs placed around the stage, each standing in for a character or location that UK addresses, converses with or portrays. As the evening progresses and the strings are stretched further into the performance space, attaching to characters, locations and events until what remains is a stunning display of how tangled UK’s experience of Britain has become. This minimal set design offers a complex visual shorthand that exemplifies what works best about small theatre: elegant solutions that rise above budgetary constraints.
Lighting comes from a modest rig that is used to full capacity. Washes of red transport us to the heat of India, and spots carve out the more vulnerable moments, creating new spaces that make the stage feel twice its size. Sound effects and music add further depth to the storytelling, with an occasional atmospheric score that brings the space to life.
As an immigrant from India himself, Mathur has a physical ease with the role that makes him deeply comfortable to watch, and for all its more serious themes, much of the heart of Dial 1 for UK is comedic. The play begins as a fish-out-of-water story, replete with a gentle naïve humour. Slowly, the jokes turn darker as it becomes clear that UK’s levity is less about comic relief and more about survival. UK wears brightness and enthusiasm as armour, allowing him to hold the bleaker parts of his situation at arm’s length. Yet, Mathur resists the temptation to keep UK simply comedic or sympathetic. He is enormously likeable, yes, but the play is frank about the difficulty of the choices he makes. This complexity trusts the audience, offering a more nuanced experience—one that leaves them questioning what they would do if the tables were turned. Much the same, I suspect.
Dial 1 for UK is a candid, heartwarming, and at times challenging production that puts a face on the other side of the call centre line. For anyone interested in the true cost of the dream of a better life, it is unmissable. Go and see it—and may your joy be uncontained.
Dial 1 For UK (Photo by Deven Ahire)
Dial 1 for UK plays at York Theatre Royal until Saturday 16 May. Tickets are available here.
Sean Sable is a Yorkshire-based freelance writer and editor specialising in Young Adult and Horror fiction, frequently at the same time. When she isn’t buried under a pile of books and manuscripts, she is looking for her keys and having extensive one-sided conversations, in Swedish, with her deaf cat. You can find her online at: www.seansable.co.uk
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