This debut drama about the demonisation of Muslim identity begins as something of a bros comedy. Three young British Pakistanis meet in a shisha lounge to shoot the breeze and smoke the hookah. They talk about work, the old uncles at the mosque and dating. Asif (Salman Akhtar) and Rashid (Arian Nik) encourage the only university graduate between them, Jihad (Omar Bynon), to keep pursuing his dream of becoming a journalist even though he has tried and failed.
Jihad’s fortunes change when they give him the idea for a documentary about shisha lounges, and the camaraderie built among the largely male, Muslim community which inhabits them. So begins Jihad’s journey into selling himself to a podcast producer and selling out his friends. Fiona, from the production company, says she wants “authenticity of voice” but reshapes Jihad’s narrative to fit her news agenda around Muslim men’s apparent threat to society.
