Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
Four stars
The world has been turned upside down a million times over since Ayub Khan Din’s tragicomic portrait of multi racial back street Britain caught some kind of zeitgeist three decades ago. The play was successful enough to be turned into a hit film three years later. Both showed off what at the time was a milieu rarely seen on stage. Set in 1971 Salford, Khan Din’s study of chip shop owning Pakistani Muslim, George, his English Catholic wife Ella, and their noisy brood of British born mixed race children tapped into a volatile melting pot of cross cultural, pan generational family life.
Half a century on from the play’s post 1960s setting, this new production comes with several lifetimes of cultural baggage in tow. Kash Arshad’s revival - a co-production between the Citizens, Bolton Octagon and Wiltshire Creative in association with Derby Theatre - stays true to the play’s roots in a bright, funny and at times brutal depiction of exile, integration and the conflicts between the two.
As the family’s younger generation start to express their individuality in ways that don’t fit in with George’s unreconstructed traditionalism, radio reports of the Bangladesh War of Independence give George something to cling to. With the drama taking place mainly in the living room and kitchen of George and Ella’s house, Rachana Jadhav’s period 1970s set becomes a domestic arena representing a microcosm of greater struggles.
Bhasker Patel’s George is by turns vulnerable and bullish, a man knee deep in prejudices that no longer apply. Samantha Powell’s Ella has her own strengths as she fights back. Each of their offspring aspires to lives where personal freedoms can be indulged without fear of reprisals. There will be no arranged marriages for Zakir Ali’s suave Tariq or Danyal Ismail’s Abdul As the only girl in the family, Maya Dhokla’s Meenah is already shaping up to be her own woman, while Joeravar’s Sangha becomes the butt of his siblings jokes as they christen him Ghandi.
The ultimate freedom of expression comes by way of Matthew Khan’s Saleem, whose gynecologically inclined art school sculpture challenges his father’s treatment of women. as the youngest, Rohan Macleod’s Sajit finds security by losing himself in his parka. Awkward and anti social as he is, it is easy enough to imagine Sajit a few years later expressing his angst through punk.
With Khan Din’s play is drawn from his own life, East is East also comes from a long line of drama sired in the north of England. Khan Din’s depiction of a domineering patriarch and a family who learn to stand up to him recalls the work of Bill Naughton, whose play, All in Good Time, Khan Din adapted as Rafta, Rafta. This doesn’t take away from the close up specifics of a play that, while war rages in Pakistan, has independence at its heart much closer to home.
The Herald, October 10th 2026
ends
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