Nikhita Lesler is trying something new.
After playing a series regular in Netflix’s Blood, Sex & Royalty and roles in the Sixth Commandment and BBC’s Casualty, the up-and-coming actor is starring in a one-woman show that places both her love of football and her South Asian heritage on centre stage.
In the play ENG-ER-LAND, it’s 1997 and 14-year-old Lizzie seems to be the only mixed-race girl at the Coventry City matches in her small midland town. Created by performer and writer Hannah Kumari and presented by Fans for Diversity and the Football Supporters’ Association, ENG-ER-LAND was inspired by Kumari’s own experience as a football fan in the 90s, and the story speaks to something deeply personal in Lesler, too.
“I've never seen something related to football on stage with someone that looks like me before,” she told the JC. “I quite liked, with this particular script, that Lizzie shows that football fans can look like anyone and be anyone. And that really spoke to me because I'm into football myself, probably not as much as Lizzie, but I don't think I look particularly like a stereotypical football fan.”
Nikhita Lesler stars as Lizzie in Hannah Kumari's play ENG-ER-LAND. (Photo: Jack Jeffreys)
Lesler, whose mother is South Asian and father is Jewish, grew up in East London with a confluence of the two distinct cultures passed down from her parents. While she has always enjoyed the blend of both heritages, a combination her mother lovingly calls “HinJew,” she noted that for many mixed people “there is a struggle, when you grow up, of identity and figuring out where you fit in and how you fit in, because you're not quite one or you're not quite the other.”
The struggle for identity is a prominent theme in ENG-ER-LAND. While Lizzie, like any teenager, is trying to figure out where she belongs, she is met with the latent racism of English football fans, who reject her for both her gender and her ethnicity. According to a 2023 study conducted by Kick It Out and the FA, "Asian participants in football are deemed to be most likely to experience discriminatory abuse based on ethnic origin.”
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This was part of what Kumari, who is a mixed race South Asian woman herself, wanted to expose in ENG-ER-LAND, which delves into the idea of English identity and who gets to define it.
Lesler said she was fortunate not to have experienced discrimination at football matches during her childhood, which her parents took her to see often. In keeping with family tradition, she supports Tottenham Hotspurs – “because my dad took me to too many games for me not to support them in the end.”
“My Nana and my Zayde are big Spurs fans, so that got passed through with my dad and that also makes me feel more connected to that side and I can share that with them,” Lesler said.
For three years, Kumari played the role of Lizzie, touring ENG-ER-LAND around the country and earning a nomination for Best Stage Production at the 2022 Asian Media Awards. Now, with theatre director Max Lindsay at the helm, Lesler said the play "feels like almost a completely different version because we wanted to bring our own stance on it.”
Nikhita Lesler plays Lizzie in Hannah Kumari's play ENG-ER-LAND at King's Head Theatre.
That it is Lesler’s first time in a one-woman show is not a fact she can easily forget; she called the experience “equal parts terrifying and thrilling.”
But Lesler is not one to shy from a new challenge, and while she has yet to portray a Jewish character, she’s keen to try it out – or maybe to write a South Asian Jewish character into a play herself.
“I'm aware that a South Asian Jew is quite a unique mix and I don't believe there's a lot [of representation] out there,” Lesler said. “But I'd like to be at the forefront to change that.”
ENG-ER-LAND runs from 25 July to 10 August at King’s Head Theatre.
