Nabil Shaban
Encyclopedia
Nabil Shaban is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
) is a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
actor and writer. He founded The Graeae
Graeae Theatre Company
Graeae Theatre Company is a British organisation composed of artists and managers with physical and sensory disabilities. It was founded in 1980 by Nabil Shaban and Richard Tomlinson and named after the Graeae of Greek mythology...
- a theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
group which promotes performers with disabilities
Disability
A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...
. He has a son named Zenyel.
Shaban was a student at the University of Surrey
University of Surrey
The University of Surrey is a university located within the county town of Guildford, Surrey in the South East of England. It received its charter on 9 September 1966, and was previously situated near Battersea Park in south-west London. The institution was known as Battersea College of Technology...
in the late seventies and contributed to the Students' Union newspaper "Bare Facts". One of his most memorable television roles was that of the hideous reptilian alien Sil
Sil (Doctor Who)
Sil is a fictional alien from the television series Doctor Who, first appearing in the 1985 serial Vengeance on Varos. Sil was portrayed by Nabil Shaban....
in the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
television series Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
. Shaban played Sil in two serials: Vengeance on Varos
Vengeance on Varos
Vengeance on Varos is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in two weekly parts from 19–26 January 1985.-Synopsis:...
(1985) and Mindwarp
Mindwarp
Mindwarp is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 4 October to 25 October 1986. It is part of the larger narrative known as The Trial of a Time Lord, encompassing the whole of the 23rd season...
(1986). Shaban is particularly well known among Doctor Who fans for Sil's laugh, which he created.
He has appeared in several films, including Born of Fire (1983), City of Joy
City of Joy
City of Joy is a novel written by Dominique Lapierre and a 1992 film directed by Roland Joffé.-Plot:The story revolves around the trials and tribulations of a young Polish priest, Stephan Kovalski, the hardships endured by a rickshaw puller, Hasari Pal in Calcutta , India and the experiences of...
(1992), Derek Jarman's Wittgenstein (film)
Wittgenstein (film)
Wittgenstein is a 1993 film by the English director Derek Jarman. It is loosely based on the life story as well as the philosophical thinking of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. The adult Wittgenstein is played by the Welsh actor Karl Johnson....
(1993), Gaias børn (1998), and Children of Men
Children of Men
Children of Men is a 2006 science fiction film loosely adapted from P. D. James's 1992 novel The Children of Men, directed by Alfonso Cuarón. In 2027, two decades of human infertility have left society on the brink of collapse. Illegal immigrants seek sanctuary in England, where the last...
(2006), and has also worked as part of the Crass Collective. In 2011, he played the Roman emperor Constantius II
Constantius II
Constantius II , was Roman Emperor from 337 to 361. The second son of Constantine I and Fausta, he ascended to the throne with his brothers Constantine II and Constans upon their father's death....
at the National Theatre in Ibsen's Emperor and Galilean
Emperor and Galilean
Emperor and Galilean is a play written by Henrik Ibsen. Although it is one of the writer’s lesser known plays, on several occasions Henrik Ibsen called Emperor and Galilean his major work...
.
In 2003 he made a TV documentary titled The Strangest Viking (part of Channel 4's
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
Secret History series), in which Shaban explored the possibility that Viking chieftain Ivar the Boneless
Ivar the Boneless
Ivar Ragnarsson nicknamed the Boneless , was a Viking leader and by reputation also a berserker. By the late 11th century he was known as a son of the powerful Ragnar Lodbrok, ruler of an area probably comprising parts of modern-day Denmark and Sweden.-Invader:In the autumn of AD 865, with his...
may have had osteogenesis imperfecta
Osteogenesis imperfecta
Osteogenesis imperfecta is a genetic bone disorder. People with OI are born with defective connective tissue, or without the ability to make it, usually because of a deficiency of Type-I collagen...
, the same condition as himself.
Shaban was nominated Best Actor in Scottish theatre in 2005, by the Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS), for his role as Mack the Knife
Mack the Knife
"Mack the Knife" or "The Ballad of Mack the Knife", originally "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer", is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their music drama Die Dreigroschenoper, or, as it is known in English, The Threepenny Opera. It premiered in Berlin in 1928 at the...
in Bertolt Brecht's
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Marxist critique...
, a Theatre Workshop (Edinburgh)
Theatre Workshop Scotland
Theatre Workshop Scotland is a theatre and film production and development company, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. TWS aims to give a voice to marginalised groups, including immigrants and the disabled.-History:...
production. Ironically, Shaban lost out to rival nominee David Tennant
David Tennant
David Tennant is a Scottish actor. In addition to his work in theatre, including a widely praised Hamlet, Tennant is best known for his role as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, along with the title role in the 2005 TV serial Casanova and as Barty Crouch, Jr...
, who was about to become the new Doctor Who
Doctor (Doctor Who)
The Doctor is the central character in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, and has also featured in two cinema feature films, a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series....
.
Shaban's play The First To Go premièred in May 2008, produced by Edinburgh's Benchtours Theatre Company in association with Sirius Pictures. It opened at the Lyceum Theatre
Royal Lyceum Theatre
The Royal Lyceum Theatre is a 658 seat theatre in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, named after the Theatre Royal Lyceum and English Opera House, the residence at the time of legendary Shakespearean actor Henry Irving. It was built in 1883 by architect C. J. Phipps at a cost of UK£17,000 on behalf...
in Edinburgh on May 23 and toured to the Tron Theatre
Tron Theatre
The Tron Theatre is located at the corner of Trongate and Chisholm Street, in the Merchant City area of Glasgow, Scotland.From its early years as a theatre club, the Tron has grown into a thriving multi-faceted venue...
, Glasgow; the Byre Theatre
Byre Theatre
The Byre Theatre is a theatre in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland. The original Byre Theatre was founded in 1933 by Alexander B Paterson, a local journalist and playwright, with help from a theatre group made up from members of Hope Park Church, St Andrews....
, St Andrews and Lawrence Batley Theatre
Lawrence Batley Theatre
The Lawrence Batley Theatre is a theatre in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England which offers drama, music, dance and comedy.The theatre is named after Lawrence Batley, a local entrepreneur and philanthropist, who founded a nationwide cash and carry chain....
, Huddersfield.
Further reading
- Dreams my Father Sold Me — poetryPoetryPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
and artworks by Nabil Shaban (ISBN 0-9548294-0-9) - The First To Go: An Original Play About Disabled People in Nazi GermanyNazi GermanyNazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
— by Nabil Shaban (ISBN 978-0954829414) - D.A.R.E. (Disabled Anarchists' Revolutionary Enclave) - Play (theatre)Play (theatre)A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
- by Nabil Shaban, Robert Rae, Jim McSharry, Daryl Beeton, and John Hollywood (ISBN 0-413-77261-6) - The Ripper Code - FictionFictionFiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
Crime Thriller - by Nabil Shaban (ISBN 978-0954829421)