Six short winning plays from 200 global entries
Winning playwrights:
Aine King, Andrew Lawston, Banu Senel, Salman Siddiqi, Erdogan Soyturk, Tamara von Werthern
11 – 14 February 2026 | Arcola Theatre, London – tickets on sale now – here: https://www.arcolatheatre.com/event/borders
Meteatra launches its first production with Borders: Digital, Political, Emotional, an evening of six short plays exploring how we live, love and struggle in a world that feels constantly on edge.
From Istanbul kitchens to London boardrooms, from refugee shores to AI dinner tables, these stories are funny, dark, personal and political all at once. They speak about technology, migration, gender, identity and power, but always through people we can recognise. Ordinary lives caught in extraordinary times.
The line-up includes Guess Who’s Computing to Dinner, Sea Monsters, Mutfak, Göç ve Boncuk, Openly Muslim, Dark Rooms and Pandas and One of Them.
Performed in English and Turkish with surtitles, the evening brings together international writers whose voices cut through the noise with sharp humour and emotional truth.
Directed by Secil Honeywill, Borders: Digital, Political, Emotional marks the beginning of Meteatra’s journey as a new London based bilingual
theatre company. Meteatra aims to create space for stories that question comfort zones and bring people together across languages and cultures.
With thanks to all who entered the competition and our jury, Philip Arditti, Irem Cavusoglu, Seray Genc, Secil Honeywill and Ece Ozdemiroglu.
This production is sponsored by Trust Accountancy 
A dinner party between two couples, one human and one AI, turns into a hilariously uncomfortable crash course in what it means to be real. Between burnt onions, malfunctioning manners and existential questions, the play skewers our obsession with technology and our fear of being replaced.
A slick corporate office becomes the stage for a collision between diversity slogans and lived experience. When Waheed “likes” the wrong post, the company’s tolerance starts to crack, exposing how representation can quickly become performance.
In a cramped Istanbul kitchen, a queer Syrian refugee called Boncuk fights back against exploitation, hypocrisy and the small violences of daily survival. Through sharp humour and fearless honesty, Boncuk reclaims their story and their right to exist in full colour…
A young eco activist and an exiled Iranian woman meet by chance on an Istanbul street. What begins as small talk about fast food and pandas turns into a raw conversation about exile, hypocrisy and hope.
A quiet morning, an ordinary family, and one phone call that tears the world apart. Through one woman’s voice, the play captures the shattering intimacy of violence that was always somewhere else.
A poetic, urgent story of a young refugee crossing borders and seas, haunted by loss, by myths, and by the monstrous systems that feed on desperation. The play moves between lyrical storytelling and cold political reality.
