Munya Chawawa shifts from social media to Shakespeare stage

Comedian and content creator Munya Chawawa is making his professional stage acting debut. The 33-year-old will play Bottom in a modern adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at Chichester Festival Theatre from 18 September to 17 October. He frames this new challenge as a deliberate move to 'jump ship' from the social media platforms that launched his career.

Chawawa rose to fame during what he calls the 'golden era of social media'. His comic characters, like posh drill rapper Unknown P and chef Jonny Oliver, found viral success. He has since branched into Bafta-nominated documentaries and stand-up. Now, he is immersing himself in Shakespeare. 'I take it super seriously,' he told reporters. He is learning classical terms and preparing for his role as a 'very political Bottom' in a version set against the UK's 1990s illegal rave scene.

Leaving a crowded digital space

Chawawa is not quitting social media entirely. He acknowledges it built his career. But he believes the online environment has turned against creatives. Algorithms have made it a 'dogfight,' he says. Good content gets 'instantly swiped to the bottom of people's pages.' He feels fortunate his early experimentation happened before today's overwhelming volume. 'There's some mad statistic about there being tens of millions of videos uploaded a day now,' Chawawa noted. Back then, trying a new character felt like the whole internet would give feedback.

His research into 1990s rave culture deepened his nostalgia for analogue experiences. He watched footage of free parties in empty fields. 'I absolutely miss an era where we were dancing for ourselves and not for a digital world somewhere,' he said. Chawawa admits his own dancing has become 'a lot stiffer' from anxiety that a misstep could be filmed and go viral. He envies his parents' generation for having unrecorded, in-person fun.

Creating a theatre home for others

Chawawa's own path to theatre was not straightforward. He fell in love with it after seeing The Lion King at age 16. As an adult, however, he sometimes felt out of place as a black audience member. A major moment came after watching Ryan Calais Cameron's play 'For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy'. Inspired, he started the Black Boys Theatre Club.

The club takes groups of teenagers to a different play each month, followed by a discussion at Nando's. The goal is not to create actors, but to show theatre can be a safe space. 'It can be your home if you want it to be,' Chawawa explained. He wants them to know they can thrive on stage or as an audience member. Arts Council England data from 2023 shows 10% of theatre audiences were from black, Asian or ethnically diverse backgrounds. Chawawa praises outreach efforts but says lower ticket prices and a broader 'societal shift' are needed for greater change.

The live experience versus the screen

Next month, his theatre club will attend his performance in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Chawawa hopes to share what he sees as the unique power of live performance. He describes theatre as a 'snow globe of human emotion.' 'Where else can I go in real life and watch somebody express all emotions without restraint?' he asked. The proximity to real, unfiltered emotion, not through a screen, is what he values. Chawawa believes that as people try to 'back off away from screens,' theatre could experience a significant boom. His own journey is a part of that shift.