Sarah Agha

Agha is from London and of Irish and Palestinian descent. Her maternal grandmother is from Derry, while her Palestinian father was born in the village of Delhamiya. At 2 years old, his family were displaced to Jordan during the Nakba under the impression it would be temporary and left most of their belongings at their house, not knowing they would be forbidden from returning. After moving to the Golan Heights when he was 8, they were displaced again during the Naksa; her father came to London in his 20s.^[1]

Agha attended Catholic school.^[2] She joined the National Youth Theatre^[3] and took a number of short summer courses with the likes of the New York Film Academy, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and the Central School of Speech and Drama. She studied Theology and Middle Eastern Studies at Trinity College Dublin, graduating in 2014.^[4]

After graduating from university, Agha was cast in the Polka Theatre children's production of Operation Magic Carpet^[5] and made her television debut with a guest appearance in a season 5 episode of the Showtime thriller series Homeland. She worked as a script supervisor on a number of projects, including the feature films A Christmas Star in 2015 and The Courier in 2019, and assistant produced the 2016 short film Portrait.^[6]

Agha also starred in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival productions Deadly Dialogues and The Sleeper in 2017 and 2018 respectively, hosted the comedy night Arabs Are Not Funny! at the Royal Albert Hall,^[7] and appeared in an episode of the AMC series Into the Badlands. Also in 2019, Agha worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon on A Museum in Baghdad and King John. She began writing articles for 1883 Magazine and Backstage.^[8]

Out of the Arab Play Reading Club she joined and curated during the COVID-19 lockdown, Agha co-founded the Arab Film Club.^[9] She returned to the stage with Bitterenders at the Arcola Theatre in 2021, followed by Hakawatis at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse the following year.^[10] Agha narrated her first documentaries Atahualpa: Death of the Last Inca Emperor and Inside Britain's Secret Nuclear Bunker.^[11]

In 2023, Agha gained recognition when she featured in the BBC Two documentary centred around the Nakba titled The Holy Land And Us: Our Untold Stories opposite Robert Rinder, in which they explore their family histories as a British-Palestinian and a British Jew respectively, as well as the stories of four other families.^[12][13] The documentary was nominated for Best Specialist Factual Programme at the Broadcast Awards.^[14] Agha has since contributed to publications such as The New Arab,^[15] Middle East Eye, and The Guardian, and appeared on networks such as BBC News.^[16]

Agha made her feature film acting debut as Fatima, the titular character's sister, in Amrou Al-Kadhi's Layla, which opened at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.^[17] Later in 2024, she starred in the one woman play A Grain of Sand, written and directed by Elias Matar for the London Palestine Film Festival.^[18] She appeared in the Channel 5 period drama The Hardacres.^[19]