Rachel De-lahay

Rachel De-lahay MBE (born 1983 or 1984)^[1][2] is a British playwright and screenwriter from Birmingham.^[3] She was made a Member of the British Empire (MBE) for service to Drama in the 2023 New Year Honours.^[4]

De-lahay was born in Handsworth, Birmingham.^[3] Her father was from Saint Kitts and Nevis and her British-born mother grew up in Pakistan.^[5] She identifies as mixed race and brown and does not describe herself as "Black".^[1] She is estranged from her father and was brought up by her mother, who worked as a nurse.^[6]

De-lahay was a pupil at King Edward VI Handsworth School for Girls. As a child, she attended Stage2 Youth Theatre Company^[3] in her native Birmingham as well as taking parts in National Youth Theatre in London.^[7] She later studied acting at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art^[1] and the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts.^[8][9]

Originally an actress, De-lahay has credited the Unheard Voices scheme at Royal Court Theatre as her first stab at writing.^[5][7] Her first play, SW11 (later renamed The Westbridge), won the Alfred Fagon Award in 2010^[10] and was subsequently produced at Royal Court to positive reviews.^[11] She went on to also win Writers' Guild Award for Best Theatre Play with The Westbridge.^[12] Her second full-length play, Routes, also premiered at Royal Court Theatre in 2013.^[13] For this play, she won the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright at the Standard Theatre Awards.^[14]

In 2013, De-lahay was one of the recipients of the Pearson Playwrights' Scheme bursary, which included a commissioned play for Birmingham Repertory Theatre in her hometown.^[15] The result was Circles, a play set in the city’s circular bus route 11, once known for being the longest urban bus route in Europe.^[16] The play was premiered at the Birmingham Repertory in 2014, followed by a run at Tricycle theatre (now Kiln Theatre) and a tour of local theatres in the West Midlands.^[17] Circles earned De-lahay the Catherine Johnson Award for Best Play.^[15]

In 2025, Birmingham Repertory Theatre announced its commissioning of De-lahay to write another play for the venue: a new stage adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.^[18]

De-lahay was selected for the BBC's Writersroom 10 development scheme in 2011/12, in a partnership with Bush Theatre.^[19] She has since got her works broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4.^[20][21] She was a writer of the BBC's immersive murder mystery film, The Last Hours of Laura K, in which she also starred as Laura Kitchens.^[22] The show was subsequently nominated for a BAFTA TV Craft Award for Digital Ceativity in 2016.^[23] Her other TV writing credits include: Kiri (Channel 4, 2018), Noughts + Crosses (BBC, 2020), and Dead Ringers (Amazon Prime Video, 2023).

In 2018, De-lahay was named among 18 screenwriters selected for the BAFTA Elevate scheme, which aimed at screenwriters from underrepresented backgrounds.^[24]

My White Best Friend is a short play that De-lahay wrote in 2017. Its premise has since inspired three festivals (one of which took place virtually) curated by De-lahay herself, as well as performances and writings by other theatre makers.

De-lahay first wrote the monologue My White Best Friend for Bush Theatre's Black Lives, Black Words Festival, taking place from 23 to 25 March 2017.^[25] De-lahay's play takes the form of a letter that the playwright has written to be read by her White best friend, "presented as though the best friend is reading the letter for the first time in a shared public space unaware of what will come up in the letter or the difficult emotions that the content could produce".^[26]: 120 A central theme of the piece is microaggression and the White best friend's failure to challenge it in support of the letter's author.^[26]

My White Best Friend was included in an anthology of 32 short plays, alongside 31 other pieces that had been performed at Black Lives, Black Words festivals in the US (where the movement originated), Canada, and the UK. The anthology was edited by Reginald Edmund, founder of the festival, and published by Oberon in 2017.^[27]

The monologue was performed again in 2019, this time alongside letters from 11 other writers in a week-long festival (18-23 March) at The Bunker Theatre. The festival, titled My White Best Friend (and Other Letters Left Unsaid) was co-curated by De-lahay and director Milli Bhatia.^[28] The writers who contributed letters to the festival were: Zia Ahmed, Travis Alabanza, Fatimah Ashgar, Nathan Bryon, Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini, Jammz, Iman Qureshi, Anya Reiss, Nina Segal and Tolani Shoneye. Each night of the festival featured a different selection of letters performed by a rotation of 13 cast members.^[29] Following the premise of De-lahay's original monologue, the performers read the letters live for the first time without having seen or rehearsed the materials.^[30] The festival was positively reviewed, noted for its engaging and provocative nature, as well as the creative use of the theatre space, resembling a party or a club night.^[31][28][32] A second run of the festival took place at the same venue, and with the same premise, from 25 to 30 November 2019.^[33] This time, the selection of letters were written by Ash Sarkar, Nikesh Shukla, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, Lena Dunham, Inua Ellams, Rabiah Hussain, Mika Onyx Johnson, Jasmine Lee-Jones, Shireen Mula, Joel Tan, Jack Thorne, and Emma Dennis-Edwards.^[34]

The 23 letters performed at The Bunker in 2019 was compiled by De-lahay into an anthology, published by Oberon Books in 2020.^[35]

My White Best Friend (and Other Letters Left Unsaid) was recommissioned by Royal Court Theatre for online performances in 2020. De-lahay and Bhatia returned as co-curators and worked with 10 new writers: Amma Asante, Elliot Barnes-Worrel, Ryan Calais Cameron, Clint Dyer, Afua Hirsch, Yasmin Joseph, Tife Kusoro, Lettie Precious, Campbell X, and Rachael Young. ^[36] The online festival ran between 13 and 17 July, each night featuring 2 new letters in addition to a recording of De-lahay's original piece performed by Ines De Clercq at the beginning.^[37]

De-lahay's monologue and festivals inspired a series of festivals in the North of England in 2021 - a collaboration between Eclipse Theatre in Leeds, Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, as well as Playhouse Theatre and Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.^[40][41][42] The commissioned monologues were edited into an anthology, titled "My White Best Friend - North", published by Methuen Drama in 2023.^[43][44]

• De-lahay, Rachel (2011). The Westbridge. London: Methuen Drama. ISBN 978-1-4081-7201-8.
• De-lahay, Rachel (2013). Routes. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-4725-2624-3.
• De-lahay, Rachel (2014). Circles. Drama & performance studies. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-4725-9191-3.
• De-lahay, Rachel (2017). "My White Best Friend". In Edmund, Reginald (ed.). Black Lives, Black Words: 32 Short Plays. London: Oberon Books. pp. 172–180. ISBN 978-1-78682-151-5.
• De-lahay, Rachel, ed. (2020). My White Best Friend (And Other Letters Left Unsaid). London: Oberon Books. ISBN 978-1-7868-2901-6.

• Rachel De-lahay at IMDb
• Rachel De-Lahay - Curtis Brown