By Grace Wood

Copyright bbc

The World Curry Festival started in Leeds in 2008.

Taking inspiration from Bradford City of Culture 2025, this year’s festival will include a “theatre of curry”, said Mr Karim.

“We felt it was important to bring culture into our festival this year, and not just be about the consumption of food, but really share the ideas and stories,” he said.

The three events include a staged reading of Balti Kings, a 1999 play written by Sudha Bhuchar and Shaheen Khan.

During the interval, theatregoers will be served a curry.

“That’s really important,” said Mr Karim. “It’s going to be kind of a communal gathering where you can chat about the play and talk about your stories.”

Other events include a supper club and a talk by Dr Amir Khan about nutrition and preserving authentic recipes.

Mr Karim said it was an important time to promote curry as the industry was suffering from a lack of new talent.

“We want to make sure we preserve it. The future is under threat because we’re having less people trained up in the sector,” he said.

“We need to keep it local, we need to keep it authentic and more importantly we want everybody to enjoy it but also learn to cook at home.”