More About the Author
Nabil Shaban was born in 1953 in Amman, Jordan and arrived in England when he was three for treatment for his osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle-bone disease). In 1980, he and Richard Tomlinson founded Graeae (pronounced Grey Eye), a professional theatre company of disabled performers. A writer and performer with many film and television credits, he is probably best known to television viewers for his role as ruthless intergalactic businessman Sil in the Doctor Who stories 'Vengeance on Varos' and 'Trial of a Timelord' (BBC, 1985 + 1986).
On stage he has played Volpone, Hamlet, and Jesus in Godspell, Haille Sellassie in 'The Emperor and Ayatollah Khomeini in Iranian Nights, Mack the Knife in Theatre Workshop's production of Brecht's "Threepenny Opera",
.....for which he was nominated Critics' Best Actor in Scottish Theatre (2004-2005).
He played Hamm in Becket's "Endgame" (2007/8) and Marquis de Sade in Peter Weiss "Marat/ Sade".
He played Siegfried in his own play, "The First To Go", about disabled people in Nazi Germany, which toured Scotland in 2008.
He also played the storyteller Rashid in the Royal National Theatre's production of Salman Rushdie's "Haroun and the Sea of Stories".
He has performed in such movies as City of Joy (d. Roland Joffe, 1991), Wittgenstein (d. Derek Jarman, 1992) and Born of Fire (d. Jamil Dehlavi, 1988), and on television in Walter (d. Stephen Frears 1982) )and Deptford Graffiti (d. Phil Davis 1991). More recently, he appeared in "Children of Men" (2006), and "Trouble Sleeping" (2007).
Nabil Shaban is a political actor and has worked in plays about Palestine (The Little Lamp, 1999 and Jasmine Road, 2003), about the State murder of Northern Ireland lawyer, Rosemary Nelson (Portadown Blues, 2000). Also "D.A.R.E." (disabled terrorists opposed to genetic cleansing of disabled people) (1997-2004).
Shaban has written and presented several documentaries on themes of disability, including the Emmy award winning Skin Horse (Channel 4, 1983), about disability and sexuality, the Fifth Gospel (BBC, 1990), exploring the relationship between the Christian gospels and disability. He also instigated and presented the Without Walls: 'Supercrips and Rejects' (Channel 4, 1996), about Hollywood's representation of disabled people. Also in a Secret History documentary "The Strangest Viking" (Channel 4, 2003), he argued the case that Ivarr the Boneless was a disabled viking leader.
Shaban's radio work includes writing and presenting a six part series on the life of Gandhi (BBC World Service 1984). Playing Benn Gunn in BBC Radio 4 "Treasure Island" (1994) and Jaturi the vulture in BBC Radio 2 "The Ramayan" (1994).
Shaban's voice was used in English version of Werner Herzog's movie "Cobra Verde"
In 1995, he founded Sirius Pictures to make video arts documentary Another World. This was followed in 1997 by the award-winning 'The Alien Who Lived in Sheds' (BBC, 1997) which he wrote, directed and starred in. He produced, wrote and directed a music film, "Crip Triptych" (2006). He also produced, wrote and directed a short drama film, "Morticia", about a little girl who wants to be a vampire.
Shaban's written plays include "The First To Go" (about disabled people in Germany's Third Reich) and "I am the Walrus" (about a schizophrenic who believes he made Mark Chapman assassinate John Lennon)
Nabil Shaban, who has a degree in Psychology and Philosophy, was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Surrey for the achievements of his career and his work to change public perceptions of disabled people.
In 2005 Nabil Shaban published his first book, "Dreams My Father Sold Me", an anthology of thirty years of his artwork and poetry, with a foreword by Lord Richard Attenborough. He now has two other books published - "The First To Go" (2007)a theatre play about disabled people in Nazi Germany; and a crime novel, "The Ripper Code" (2008), about a disabled man hooked on hookers, who decides to be a Sherlock Holmes in a wheelchair, investigating a serial killer of prostitutes who mimics Jack the Ripper. "The Ripper Code" is actually based on the author's experiences.
what readers have said about "The Ripper Code" and "The First To Go", two books by Nabil Shaban
"The Ripper Code"... love it. Very exciting, funny, sad and more-ish. - Tuppy Owens, The Outsiders Club, 19th July 2009
"I'm .... enjoying the Ripper Code. It's mad!" - Gareth Nolan
" "Ripper Code"... it's fabulous" - Jessica Sharp
"Body Fascism and Biocracy: The Themes of Nabil Shaban
by Jez Strickley
As readability tests go, tackling a novel in the confines of a one-man tent on a gusty night must be one of the more rigorous. It is a compliment to his skill as a writer, therefore, that Nabil Shaban's 2008 novel The Ripper Code was more than capable of holding my attention, despite the wind turning my tent's flysheet into a veritable wailing banshee.
With my attention firmly fixed upon his modern-day rendering of the 1888 Whitechapel Murders, Shaban's quick-fire prose rapidly drew me into a dysfunctional - but all too real - world of social and sexual prejudices which, incidentally, would not look out of place in Victorian Britain. The undercurrents of this dismal landscape propel the protagonist, Maxwell 'Max' Abberline, into an occult-soaked mystery that is unlikely to have a Hollywood ending.
Max is no lilywhite hero. Perceived as a harmless, if somewhat eccentric civil
servant with a penchant for numerology, Max's wheelchair-user status sees him categorised by some as one who dwells in the unlit corners of society; an ironic conclusion given his curb-crawling addiction. His struggle to overcome these misconceptions helps to define his character, and paints a picture of a man on the edge of the world, marooned from the everyday traffic of human affairs by the unthinking condescension and pitying of his so-called peers.
There is a glimmer of redemption in this melancholic state, however. To thwart a sickening killer, whose callous disregard for life wields an unrelenting brutality, Max becomes involved in a police investigation which pushes his skills of deduction to the very limit.
Shaban tempers the dark matter that pervades his tale with a lightness of touch which lends a humour, appropriately of the black variety, toproceedings. But there is a biting political wit at the heart of things, which we are left to consider at will. This is unsurprising. Shaban's work as an actor, writer and artist seldom fails to address the questions which some of us would prefer to go unasked.
The striking issue of body fascism is one such question. Dealing with ingrained prejudice is what shapes - at least in part - Max's everyday existence. From work colleagues and the local police force, to the prostitutes
who populate his nightly quests for sexual fulfilment, Max faces an all-seeing world in which humanity is only skin deep.
This is not the first time a character must counter the effects of body fascism in Shaban's writing. In his 1996 play, The First To Go (published in 2007 by Sirius Book Works), Shaban uncovers the chilling details of the Nazi Party's eugenics policy, which saw sterilisation, and later extermination, become state-sanctioned tools against the disabled citizens of Nazi Germany.
When I first read The First To Go I was taken aback by the depth of the tragedy which unfolds amongst a small circle of institutionalised disabled friends, who must face the full force of the Nazis' twisted doctrine of
'good genes'. This fallen science is portrayed as a brave new world by its soft-minded practitioners, who commence with a scheme which becomes nothing short of a disabled holocaust.
In unpacking the horrors contained within this ethically barren reality there is revealed a single word which possesses devastating compass. The term 'biocracy', referred to in the opening scene of the play, turns out to
have at least two connotations. In the first case it refers to a wider circle of concern involving both human and non-human beings (see Michael W. Stowell's Biocracy at http://www.swans.com/library/art7/mws002.html).
Idealistic, perhaps, but no less worthy an ambition. For Shaban, however, the word has an altogether darker upon the tyrannous principle that the genetically 'unclean' are to be erased. In this nightmarish scenario a
high priesthood of doctors and clinicians will see to it that the non-disabled are freed of the hereditary pollution presented by the disabled population.
This is a frightening prospect, but not impossible. Genetic screening is now commonplace in much of the developed world; and discrimination against the disabled is still manifest in many states and cultures.
Whether this discrimination is manifested in terms which are social or economic, medical or political, Shaban voices the concern of many in the disabled community that the awful craft of eugenics, as practiced by the
Nazi regime, will slowly but surely come to pass once more.
It will be reached by no less than the most insidious path, which will witness the disabled citizen become increasingly marginalised until sterilisation proposals and euthanasia programmes are welcomed as the most
loving of things to do.
Avoiding this deadly trajectory and encouraging open and frank debate on the nature of disability is part and parcel of Shaban's campaigning on disabled rights. It is a campaign which is at once personal and professional.
In 1980 he co-founded the disabled theatre company Graeae to help bring about his ambition to become a professional actor; it was an achievement which has had lasting consequences. As a skilled thespian on both stage and screen he has helped to raise the profile of disabled citizens' rights, providing much needed momentum for the ongoing struggle for genuine equality.
As much a philosopher of society as a shrewd playwright, Shaban has long since extended the remit of his influence to the field of documentary making. In 1989 he visited the Roman Catholic pilgrimage site at Lourdes, France, to consider the effects of the Bible upon the way disabled people are perceived. Originally broadcast as The Fifth Gospel for the BBC Everyman series in 1990, an extract of Shaban's findings (entitled The Bible is "Body Fascist") is available on his YouTube channel, ScabsNabs (seen here). The extract in
question provides some telling points, not least of which is the truly shocking manner in which Shaban himself is treated whilst visiting the site.
The themes of body fascism and biocracy which recur in Shaban's work are indeed strong propellants - and not without good reason. Deep-seated prejudices such as these may only be vanquished if the mirror of our past
mistakes and misjudgements is forever held up to the light. In much the same way that, to varying degrees, the disabled community still faces a world which echoes to the expression 'out of sight, out of mind', the need to redefine physical and mental disability in the twenty-first century is one which does not go away.
Fortunately, thinkers of such calibre as Nabil Shaban are on hand to ensure that we do not forget.
The Ripper Code (ISBN: 978-0-9548294-2-1) and The First To Go (ISBN: 978-0-9548294-1-4) are available from Sirius Book Works.
THE WINTERWIND PAPERS July 2009"
