ON STAGE REVIEW | BROWN GIRLS DO IT TOO : MAMA TOLD ME NOT TO COME

Sex, skits, and Shagony Aunties- Poppy and Rubina bring their pod­cast to the stage with fear­less humour and heart­felt honesty.

Last week marked the open­ing night of Brown Girls Do It Too: Mama Told Me Not To Come at Soho Theatre, the live show adapt­a­tion of the trail­blaz­ing pod­cast that made waves across the South Asi­an com­munity — and far bey­ond — for its uncensored, laugh-out-loud, and thought­ful explor­a­tion of sex, rela­tion­ships, and everything in between.

Ori­gin­ally hos­ted by Poppy Jay and Rubina Pabani (with Roya Eslami co-host­ing the first series), the pod­cast launched in 2019 and quickly racked up awards and loy­al listen­ers. Poppy and Rubina — both mil­len­ni­al, second-gen­er­a­tion Brit­ish South Asi­an women of Banglade­shi and Indi­an her­it­age — weren’t just talk­ing about Tinder dates, break­ups, or trim­ming pubes. They were doing some­thing more rad­ic­al: cent­ring the voices of women like them, in all their com­plex­ity, con­tra­dic­tion, and hilarity.

Dubbed the “South Asi­an Car­rie Brad­shaws,” the duo delivered Sex and the City energy — if Sex and the City had inter­rog­ated intergen­er­a­tion­al trauma, cul­tur­al expect­a­tions, and what it means to be brown, bold, and break­ing the rules. As they’ve said them­selves, the pod­cast gave young South Asi­an women a space to feel seen, heard, and held. They shattered the ste­reo­type of the repressed, obed­i­ent woman and instead spot­lighted the messy, horny, funny, furi­ous, lov­ing, con­flic­ted real­ness that had always exis­ted — but rarely been giv­en a mic.

Over five years, listen­ers fol­lowed Poppy and Rubina through their own evolving lives: from arranged mar­riages to moth­er­hood. They were ‘Shagony Aunties’, and they were a soft, safe space for dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions to land.

The live show didn’t just carry that same spir­it — it elev­ated it. With a mix of stand-up, skits, and songs, Poppy and Rubina brought the full spec­trum of their exper­i­ences to life on stage: from mas­turb­a­tion and hair remov­al to par­ent­ing and mar­riage, to code switch­ing and the pres­sures of white­ness on how South Asi­an women and girls see and define their worth and beauty. 

They man­aged to make you laugh till your sides hurt, then pause to reflect on the quiet, inher­ited pain that shaped so much of their joy and rebellion.

Beneath the spit-your-drink humour and bold cand­our lies some­thing deep­er: a revolu­tion­ary ten­der­ness. Nowhere was this more evid­ent than in the show’s clos­ing moment, where both women read let­ters to their moth­ers. It was a remind­er that their work — the pod­cast, the show, the bravery — isn’t just enter­tain­ment. It’s a cul­tur­al inter­ven­tion. In Poppy’s words to her moth­er: “If we’re loud, it’s because you couldn’t be.”

And while Brown Girls Do It Too is undeni­ably a love let­ter and ral­ly­ing cry for South Asi­an women and girls, to view it as only that would be miss­ing the point. I, a white woman, atten­ded with my part­ner — a South Asi­an man. There were moments we turned to each oth­er with a know­ing “see?” or a dawn­ing “I get it now,” each of us chal­lenged and changed by what we heard. The show held space for shared exper­i­ence, and even more gen­er­ously, for learn­ing the lim­its of your own.

We ended the night in con­ver­sa­tion with Poppy and Rubina — anim­ated, open, unfiltered — cov­er­ing everything from inter­faith rela­tion­ships to rim­ming. Which, hon­estly, sums up the show perfectly.

Catch Brown Girls Do It Too at Soho Theatre Waltham­stow from 9^th — 13^th Septem­ber. Tick­ets on sale HERE

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Kym L

Lon­don-based Bel­gian and mem­ber of Stand Up To Racism as well as vegan food enthusiast.

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