One of Bollywood's leading lights hopes her latest play, coming to Watermans in Brentford next month, will help give more women the belief to follow their dreams.

Shabana Azmi has been named best actress a record five times at the National Film Awards in India, having starred in hit movies like Amar, Akbar, Anthony; and The Chess Players.

She plays the matriarch Tejpal Johal in Happy Birthday Sunita, a comedy in which a 40th birthday party lights the wick on incendiary family tensions.

"Tejpal's husband has been away in India and she's almost single-handedly raised the family while working three days a week at a surgery," Azmi tells getwestlondon.

"The rest of the family regards her as a care-giver, but she decides to confront them and say she's fed up of playing by the rules and wants to follow her dreams.

"For the first time they see her as a real person, rather than a mother figure, and her action acts as a catalyst for the rest of the family to drop their pretences and be who they really are."

Shabana Azmi, Ameet Chana, Goldy Notay and Russell Floyd in Happy Birthday Sunita

Happy Birthday Sunita is primarily a comedy, but as a committed social activist and a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations, the theme of liberation was a big draw for Azmi.

"The message that it's never too late to follow your dreams is an important one as I think a lot of people will identify with Tejpal's experience," she says.

"There are many women who have spent their whole lives playing a role assigned by society, women for whom sacrifice is imposed at the cost of individual desires."

Azmi is the daughter of poet Kaifi Azmi and actress Shaukat Azmi, both members of the Communist Party of India, and she enjoyed a liberal upbringing.

"My brother and I were always treated as equals and we lived in a commune where all the women were working women," she says.

"I always thought that was the norm. It wasn't until I turned 19 that I realised the world's very different to the one I grew up in."

Women's rights in India have been the focus of international attention in the last year, following a string of protests about the seemingly casual response of ministers and police there to the shockingly high number of rapes.

Goldy Notay in Happy Birthday Sunita

Azmi, who previously appeared at Watermans in Tumhari Amrita, believes the fact these crimes are now gaining publicity shows progress is being made, though much work remains to be done.

"You have to realise India's a country which lives in several centuries simultaneously. We have very powerful, liberated women, but we also have girls being killed at birth," she says.

"I think there's been a new awakening, particularly over the issue of violence against women.

"The notion of masculinity has always been based only on physical strength. This needs to be revisited so masculinity is also about compassion and respect for women, and that's a journey which has started."

It is a journey on which her stepson, the actor and director Farhan Akhtar, is leading the way. He recently launched the campaign Men Against Rape and Discrimination, and Azmi says she is proud of his efforts to raise awareness of the issue.

Goldy Notay, Shabana Azmi, Clara Indrani and Ameet Chana in Happy Birthday Sunita

* Happy Birthday Sunita, by Rifco Arts, also stars Goldy Notay, who played Azmi's daughter in It's a Wonderful Afterlife, and Ameet Chana, better known as Adi Ferreira in Eastenders.

The comedy, directed by Pravesh Kumar, is at Watermans, in Brentford High Street, from October 14-18. Tickets, priced £12.50 to £15, are available at www.watermans.org.uk or from the box office on 020 8232 1010.