Roshi Nasehi

Picture credit: Peter Stray

Born in Wales to Iranian parents, Roshi Nasehi is a musician with a strong track record in performance, recording, theatre, sound installation, cross arts collaboration, public art and social engagement projects. Her records have received significant airplay including BBC Radio 3, 6 Music, RTE and widespread critical acclaim including The Independent, New Internationalist, Q and twice record of the month in Mixmag who described her as "one of the most singular voices working at the moment". She has received many commissions including the Belonging exhibition at the Museum Of London, BBC Radio 3 & 4, So&So Circus Theatre, the Southbank WOW festival and the British Council for whom she created and presented major public Sound Art pieces in Kuwait.

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There are loads of advantages of growing up both Welsh and Iranian, especially if you end up working in music and theatre, like I have. I am steeped in both cultures, the music and poetry, all the richness and humour and emotion of the languages. I speak Farsi and English, and a little bit of Welsh too. But there are also negative aspects to having a mixed heritage background, mainly the casual racism that I have encountered throughout my life as the child of Middle Eastern immigrants growing up in a very white country. 

For years I just laughed these incidents off, because most were very minor, or just pathetic. But I also experienced a few creepy and upsetting encounters, including one that was recorded by the police as a hate crime. Fortunately, most of the racism I have experienced has been surreal, darkly funny, and often hilarious. That is why I decided to write and perform my one-woman meta-comic show, Ramalama Ding Dong, a mix of stand-up, music, sound art, confessional memoir and loud Welsh swearing. I am happy to say that the show has had a very positive audience and press response. I have now performed it multiple times in London as well as Brighton, Colchester, Newcastle, and a two-week run at the Edinburgh Fringe last summer. Sadly, no firm dates have been booked in Wales yet but I am open to offers! 

Ramalama Ding Dong draws on my background as a child of Iranian heritage born in Wales. Both my parents are Iranian and met at the University of Tehran. In the mid-70s, my father had been offered some great opportunities to develop his career abroad. He had a choice between Europe and Canada, and decided to move to Swansea! It had a good engineering department and my parents said it reminded them of the North of Iran near the Caspian Sea where they had holidayed as children. I think they came on a rare sunny day! I was born a couple of years later.

My mum and dad wanted to make sure I was able to embrace and adapt to my local surroundings above learning about my Persian roots. I think because the schools I attended throughout my childhood weren't really multicultural, you could tell that I was 'different' and you had to look hard to find anyone else from other cultures.

I did reasonably well at school, and from there I developed a passion for music. I remember singing Welsh folk songs, songs from musicals and 1980s pop in school and local choirs. I also won some school piano competitions and prizes at county Eisteddfods. From that point, I wanted music to pay my bills. I took the next step of achieving this goal by studying piano and composition at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, studying improvisation with Free Jazz legends Keith and Julie Tippett, and composing music for a production of Live Like Pigs directed by Deborah Bruce.

Welsh College felt life-changing after growing up in Swansea. I met like-minded people who also shared my passion for different types of music. What better way of expressing yourself than through your life passions? Music has never left me - there was never a moment where I thought about giving it up. But it has been interesting to make a solo theatre piece that combines my musical side with comedy and visuals, personal memories and family experience. Welshness is a huge part of the show, and my life generally. Swansea made me who I am, definitely. I still go back often and last autumn I worked as co-composer and sound designer for fellow Welsh-Iranian, Lisa Zahra’s theatre piece Baba Joon. You can leave a place physically, but never emotionally. I'm blessed that both Wales and Iran have so much to offer.

Roshi will perform her critically acclaimed piece Ramalama Ding Dong for the last time at Camden People’s Theatre at 9pm on 19 April 2024. Cymranian readers can use the code SCALEDOWN10 for discounted entry. Click here to book.

"With Comparisons to Stewart Lee, Hannah Gadsby and Meredith Monk, Roshi is challenging and clever with a quick-witted way of whipping up laughs out of the absurd and awful..." METRO