About Samia
Samia Rida is a half-Saudi, half-Welsh actor, writer and comedian. And a whole outsider.
Her acting credits include Sky's Breeders and Netflix/BBC's Rebel Cheer Squad. She's a BBC Writersroom and Women in Film & Television mentoring alumna, and her comedy pilot TRADERS, inspired by her real-life experience teaching yoga to hedge fund traders, was previously optioned by Vox Pictures. She became fascinated by how yogic practices designed to regulate the nervous system in pursuit of enlightenment were being repurposed by the hedge fund managers she taught to keep them calm while the markets, and millions of pounds, oscillate around them. She also couldn't help comparing her hourly rate with the financial benefits they were enjoying.
She has also had pilots optioned by Fulwell73 and NoHo Film and Television.
Her latest work, KIDNAP, is a one-woman comedy-drama about being kidnapped to Saudi Arabia by her father as a child. Naturally, it's a comedy. Directed by Gareth Edwards (Spaced, That Mitchell & Webb Look, Upstart Crow), the show received five stars and an Outstanding rating at the Edinburgh Fringe with Gilded Balloon, four stars at London's Drayton Arms, and has played Riverside Studios, Park Theatre and Pitlochry Festival Theatre amongst others. The script got to interview stage for the BBC Comedy Collective, reaching the final 20 out of 1,300 submissions. BBC Comedy Collective have continued to support the project.
Drawing on her background as a trained counsellor, Samia writes about identity, family, cultural collisions, fuelled by a rampant obsession with exploring the unsayable and laughing in the face of adversity.