Set in an alternative education unit in London, Spicy White follows Aisha, a teenage girl navigating a system that labels her anger as dangerous before she even speaks. The unit is suffocating—power hides in jokes, stares, and policies dressed up as care. The wrong move leads to punishment. The right move doesn’t exist. But in the cracks of this tightly controlled environment, there is defiance. There is sisterhood.
Spicy White is a bold, mixed-race narrative that explores institutional control, racial fetishisation, silence, and survival. It centres the voices of girls too often ignored—girls whose stories are rarely told with depth or truth.
This rehearsed reading marked the first public sharing of Spicy White, developed with support from Arts Council England as part of Laila Latifa’s debut research and development project. The play draws from Laila’s Moroccan and Irish heritage and her wider artistic interest in how race, gender, and class collide in contemporary Britain.
The event also featured a cultural exchange, offering Moroccan atay and Irish cakes, and reflecting on inherited traditions, hospitality, and the reimagining of folklore. The evening concluded with an in-conversation and Q&A with Laila Latifa and Fatima Serghini, creating space for deeper dialogue around the play’s themes and creative process.
