At the start of the stage adaptation of The Boy at the Back of the Class, the sea is not a projection or a set piece, but a cobalt blue sheet – lifted, shaken, and stretched across the stage. It billows and crashes in the hands of the cast, evoking a journey that is abstract and immediate. Later, a football match unfolds without a ball, conjured entirely through movement and sound. 

It is this kind of theatrical shorthand that defines the production: moments that might take pages to build in the book are compressed into something visual, physical, and collective. The story, however, remains the same – a young Syrian boy, Ahmet, arriving alone in a British classroom, and the group of schoolchildren determined to reunite him with his family – but the way it is told has shifted. 

First published in 2018, The Boy at the Back of the Class is a children’s novel by Onjali Q. Rauf, an MBE-honoured author and the founder of O’s Refugee Aid, a grassroots organisation supporting refugees in the UK. Her work off the page, including frontline aid with displaced communities, underpins the emotional core of the story. The play won a Laure Olivier Award for Best Family Show in April 2026. 

For Onjali Q. Rauf, watching that shift has been a strange experience.“It still feels very surreal,” she says. “You have these characters in your imagination for so many years, and then suddenly they’re there in front of you.”

Rauf often sits in the audience during performances, listening as children react in real time. Unlike the quiet, private act of reading, theatre invites a different kind of engagement. Young audiences, in particular, don’t hold back; they gasp at the heart-wrenching moments, laugh at 6-7 jokes, and respond instinctively to what unfolds in front of them. That response has been one of the most striking aspects of the production.

Where adult audiences might internalise discomfort, children tend to externalise it, reacting audibly to moments of injustice or cruelty.

It’s something the creative team has leaned into rather than softened.

Adapted by playwright Nick Ahad and directed by Monique Touko, the play resists the temptation to dilute its subject matter. Alongside moments of humour and warmth, particularly in the dynamic between Ahmet and his classmates, it deals directly with war, displacement, and the hostility refugees encounter on arrival.

The character of Brendan, the school bully, embodies some of that hostility. But rather than presenting him as a simple antagonist, the play gestures towards the environment that shapes him; the language he absorbs, the attitudes he repeats. Elsewhere, adults at the school gates echo the same rhetoric, making it clear that prejudice is not confined to children but learned from the world around them.

That attention to everyday racism is something Rauf was keen to retain in the adaptation.“It was really important that the script captured those everyday moments,” she says. “The things that people might not even realise they’re saying.”

The move from page to stage has not only altered how the story looks, but also how it is structured. In the book, Ahmet is largely observed, his story pieced together by the narrator, Alexa, and her friends. On stage, that balance shifts.

Midway through the play, Ahmet begins to speak for himself, his voice taking centre stage in a way that reorients the narrative.

“I didn’t see that coming,” Rauf admits. “But it works. It gives him that space to tell his story out loud.”

That also reflects the demands of theatre. What might be implied or gradually revealed in prose needs to be made visible and often quickly. “As a writer, you can spend pages describing something,” Rauf says. “On stage, it can happen in a second.”

The adaptation process itself required a degree of distance. Ahad wrote the first draft before meeting Rauf, working from the text alone. When they did eventually connect, the collaboration opened up, with Rauf feeding into later drafts and ongoing changes, particularly as the political context shifted.

Still, letting go was not always straightforward. “I had a very fixed idea of what the characters looked like,” she says. “So seeing the casting was a bit of a shock at first.”

When The Boy at the Back of the Class was first published in 2018, it arrived at a moment when the Syrian refugee crisis was still widely covered, and public discourse, while far from uncomplicated, carried a degree of visible empathy, Rauf tells me.

Eight years on, that context has shifted. The language surrounding refugees has hardened, and policies have followed suit. The play, in its current form, reflects that change.

“We’re in a much more extreme place now,” Rauf says. “It feels more urgent to tell this story.”

That urgency is embedded in the updated script, which references contemporary hostility towards people seeking asylum in the UK, including protests and attacks linked to refugee housing. Rauf suggests that young audiences are more attuned to these dynamics than they are often given credit for.

“Children are hearing all of this and are very aware,” she says. “They might not have all the context, but they know when something feels wrong.”

The children in Ahmet’s class don’t fully understand immigration policy or international conflict, but they recognise injustice when they see it. Their response is characteristically simple: if something is wrong, it should be fixed. That logic leads them to Buckingham Palace, in an attempt to appeal directly to the Queen. The play retains that detail, resisting suggestions to update it following her death –  a decision Rauf stands by, pointing to the symbolic role of female authority within the narrative.

Beyond the stage, the production has taken on a more explicitly political dimension. Audiences are invited to sign postcards addressed to the Prime Minister, calling for changes to refugee family reunification laws in direct response to current policy. At each performance, hundreds are distributed, with many signed by children.

“They’re ready,” Rauf says. “They want to do something.”

She has seen similar responses over the years from readers of the book, children organising fundraisers, setting up stalls, finding small but tangible ways to respond. The play, however, accelerates that process. “It’s more immediate,” she says. “You’re sitting there, experiencing it all at once.”

For Rauf, the continued life of the story also raises broader questions about storytelling itself. Who gets to do it, and who gets left out. “I didn’t grow up seeing Muslim names in books or in theatre,” she says. “It didn’t feel like a space that was open to us.” Breaking into publishing took years, a reflection of industries that have historically been difficult to access. While that landscape is slowly shifting, the imbalance remains.

“If we’re not telling our own stories, they’ll be told for us,” she says.

Back in the theatre, the audience response continues to unfold in real time, laughter in one moment, discomfort in the next. Children lean forward, adults shift in their seats, and the story moves between them. For Rauf, that exchange is the point. “As long as it starts conversations,” she says, “that’s what matters.”

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Q&A with Onjali Q. Rauf

What did seeing the play teach you about storytelling?
“It taught me how much can be said without words. As a novelist, you rely so much on description, but theatre can capture something instantly; through movement, through silence, through expression. It made me rethink how stories can live in different forms.”

What was the most surprising change in the adaptation?
“The moment Ahmet becomes the centre of the story and starts speaking for himself. I didn’t see that coming at all, but it completely works. It gives him that agency, that space to tell his story out loud, which feels really important.”

Was it difficult to let go of your vision for the characters?
“Very. I had very fixed ideas of what they looked like and how they would be. So seeing the casting was a bit of a shock at first. But I had to learn to strip that back and trust the essence of the character rather than the specifics in my head.”

How has the political climate shaped this version of the play?
“It’s made it more urgent. When I first wrote the book, there was more visible empathy in public conversations. Now, the language around refugees has become harsher, more normalised. Children are hearing that every day, so it felt important to address it directly.”

Do you think children understand these issues more than we assume?
“Completely. They’re incredibly aware. They might not have all the context, but they know when something feels wrong. The danger is when they hear something again and again – it can start to feel normal. That’s what we’re trying to challenge.”

The play invites audiences to take action. Why was that important to you?
“Because children want to do something. When you give them that opportunity, they’re ready. We’re handing out postcards for them to write to the Prime Minister, and they take it seriously. They have such a strong sense of justice.”

What do you hope young audiences take away from it?
“That they’re not too small to make a difference. We’re living in a time where everything can feel overwhelming, but even something small, like making a friend or choosing kindness, can change someone’s world.”

How does your identity as a Muslim author shape the way you tell stories?
“I didn’t grow up seeing Muslim names in books or theatre. It didn’t feel like a space that was open to us. So for me, it’s always been important that we tell our own stories. If we don’t, they’ll be told for us.”

What does it mean to see your work exist beyond the page now?
“It’s a strange feeling because the story doesn’t fully belong to you anymore. It belongs to the director, the actors, and the audience. But I think that’s a beautiful thing. Stories are meant to be shared and reshaped.”

And finally — what keeps you hopeful?
“The children. Always the children. They’re curious, they question things, they want to make the world better. I think we underestimate them far too much.”

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The Boy at the Back of the Class is currently playing at:

Hall for Cornwall, Truro, from 28 April – 2 May

Grand Theatre, Blackpool from 5 May – 9 May

New Theatre, Cardiff from 12 – 16 May

Alhambra Theatre, Bradford from 19 – 23 May