We're all talking Turkey

'I grew up in a small village where we had literally nothing: no electricity, no running water,' she says. 'Because of the political uprising, my family had to move to the south. Many other families will have had to do the same.'

The second play, Pera Palas, is very different: written by a Turkish-American writer, Sinan H <nel, it spans the 20th century in Turkey, from the last days of the Ottoman Empire and the new dawn of modernity heralded by the founding of Atat¸rk's Republic through to the Islamic revival of recent years.

A defining theme is the changing role of women. The issue has been brought to the forefront by the Islamic right's attempts to gain a foothold by challenging Turkey's secular rulings on the wearing of the headscarf, which is banned in official buildings and universities.

'It's a controversial issue at the moment because the wife of the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, wears a headscarf in public,' says Ergen. 'We know university girls in Istanbul whose fees are paid by Islamic right organisations in return for wearing the headscarf,' adds Nazli, who came to London as a student and who, like Ergen, lives here permanently.

'Turkey kicked out this radical Islamic behaviour in the 1990s but recently some very powerful and well-organised factions have started trying to turn the country into an Islamic state. It can be dangerous: a journalist was killed a few months ago and last week three people were killed for publishing a Bible.'

Ergen is fully aware that secular Turkey has its own history of oppression: in 2005 novelist Orhan Pamuk was tried by a Turkish court for 'insulting Turkishness' when he accused the republic of covering up the massacre of Kurds and Armenians - charges that were eventually dropped.

'Turkish history is full of artists who live in fear for their lives,' he says. 'It makes the subject of Turkey all the more vibrant to discuss on stage.'

And where better than at the Arcola? Nowhere, if Ergen's ambitions are anything to go by: the next big plan is to turn it into the world's first carbon-neutral theatre by making it completely energy self-sufficient.

This is more than just a pipe dream: it's technically achievable but first the theatre needs to buy the building from its landlord, who, with crushing predictability, wants to turn the upper two floors into flats.

'It's a challenge,' grins Ergen. 'But what else are we going to do with the rest of our lives?'

The Orient Express Season opens tomorrow, until Jul 7, Arcola Theatre, 27 Arcola Street E8, various times and prices. Tel: 020 7503 1646. www.arcolatheatre.com Rail: Dalston Kingsland