Theatre should thrill and shake you

Rising director Milli Bhatia tells Nick Clark how activism and going raving inform her trailblazing work

- Nick Clark

SATEENAGERwhen she wasn't making plays - Milli Bhatia went raving. And the time on the dancefloor still influences how one of London's most exciting directing talents makes work for the stage. "You go to the theatre to be thrilled and shaken," she says. "I want to feel exhilarated and wakened, like I do when I go raving." Though she adds with a smile that when going out to clubs these days, "raving doesn't feel like the right word anymore".

Later this year, Bhatia will take her breakout production of Jasmine LeeJones's hit play Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner to Sweden and then in 2023 to the US, but first she's taking the helm on Sonali Bhattacharyya's Chasing Hares opening at the Young Vic next week. In an attempt to bring that visceral experience, she told her technical team, "let's give the audience a nosebleed".

We speak on Zoom as the production is going into technical rehearsal and the mood is exuberant. At one point Bhatia asks for calm from the cast, whom we can hear. "There's a lovely energy outside the door," she smiles. "It's just quite loud."

Chasing Hares follows Prab, a factory worker in Kolkata who is asked to write for a tre troupe. He uses the opportunity to expose the conditions and child exploitation he sees in his work, risking his future to fight for change. "It's about the precarity of work in West Bengal and here in the UK," Bhatia says. "It has a cross-cultural conversation about workers' rights. It's about the gig economy, about the working class. It's about labour organising and culture."