Norm and Ahmed

'Buzo has something real and immediate to say about Australian attitudes. He makes the audience uneasy about the unperceptiveness of an "average" Aussie confronted by a well-mannered, educated Pakistani student. Norm parades many of the proper, accepted attitudes which […] are shot through the fabric of the Australian character.' — Griffen Foley, Daily Telegraph, 10 April 1968


Written and performed in 1968, Norm and Ahmed was Alex Buzo's first performed play. It gained immediate notice, both for Norm's spectacular language and for the character of Ahmed, one of the first South Asian characters to feature in contemporary Australian theatre. Still alarmingly relevant in the 21st century, Norm and Ahmed has earned its place as a classic of Australian theatre due to its timeless themes and the heightened language, performance style and concern with the behaviour of Australians, its origins and causes that characterised the New Wave.