East Is East – Octagon Theatre

There is something rather unsettling about watching East Is East in 2026. Ayub Khan-Din’s celebrated play, first staged in 1996 and set in Salford in 1971, was written at a time when Britain was beginning to confront the contradictions of a multicultural society. Thirty years on, Kash Arshad’s new production arrives with the play’s questions about identity, belonging, family and prejudice still perhaps too stubbornly relevant.

Set above the Khan family’s chip shop, the play introduces us to seven children negotiating the competing expectations of their Pakistani father George (Bhasker Patel) and English mother Ella (Samantha Power). George is determined that his children should embrace his version of Pakistani tradition; his offspring, born and raised in England, have rather different ideas.

There is plenty of comedy in those cultural collisions. Tariq (Zaki Ali) has embraced the 1970s rebellion of flares, nightclubs, pork and a white girlfriend. Meenah (Maya Dhokia) is more interested in football than behaving like the daughter her father expects. Saleem (Matthew Khan) secretly pursues art rather than the engineering career George imagines for him. Religious Maneer (Joeravar Sangha) finds solace in Islam, while youngest son Sajid (Rohan Macleod) hides behind his parka as the family implodes around him. Above all is the spectre of unseen Nazeer, the eldest son who was disowned for being gay.

Introducing such a large cast of characters in the first act is no easy task and, at times, the production feels like a series of comic introductions rather than a fully coherent drama. Arshad’s direction is strongest when the family is allowed to simply be a family: bickering, teasing, laughing and infuriating one another with the familiarity of siblings who have spent far too much time in each other’s company.

As someone brought up in Salford at the time in which the story is set, I can attest to the truthfulness of those family dynamics. The clothes, language, attitudes and social tensions are not simply period decoration; they are recognisable memories of a particular northern working-class world.

But East Is East is ultimately much darker than its reputation as a comedy might suggest.

The arrival of the arranged marriages exposes the fault lines within the Khan household, while George’s increasingly violent attempts to impose his authority reveal the tragedy beneath the bluster. What begins as comic patriarch becomes something considerably more disturbing: a man desperately attempting to retain control over a family and a world that are moving beyond him. Bhaskar Patel resists easy caricature here, letting the menace creep in around the edges of the comedy rather than announcing itself.

The women, interestingly, drive much of this story. Ella may appear to be the long-suffering wife attempting to keep everyone together, but she is the beating heart of the family. Power’s dry sarcasm and biting wit frequently provide the sharpest observations, while Auntie Annie (Victoria Brazier) brings another welcome dose of female resilience. George may delight in believing he is head of the household, but it is Ella who holds it together.

That makes the tonal inconsistency of this production particularly frustrating. The first act is largely broad family comedy before the second becomes increasingly political and confrontational, with domestic violence and emotional cruelty coming to the fore. Then, just when the darkness has begun to settle, we are propelled back towards near-farce with Saleem’s spectacularly inappropriate art project and the matrimonial visit from Mr Shah (Sushil Chudasama).

The problem isn’t the range of tones within Khan-Din’s play; that collision of laughter and pain is fundamental to its power. Rather, Arshad doesn’t always soften the joins sufficiently to make those shifts feel organic.

The comparison with the much-loved 1999 film is inevitable. The film expands the world beyond the Khan household into cinemas, nightclubs, chip shops, streets and art school, and gives greater prominence to Tariq. The stage play is more claustrophobic and, consequently, more intense. Here, George’s journey from comic patriarch to increasingly isolated and tragic figure is arguably more powerful because we are trapped in the household with him.

And then there is the language. Words that were shocking in 1996 are now routinely heard in contemporary culture, but what proved most uncomfortable was hearing sections of the audience laughing at some of them. East Is East was supposed to demonstrate how far society had travelled between 1971 and 1996. Sitting in a theatre in 2026, I found myself wondering whether we have travelled quite as far as we like to think. Indeed, judging by some of the audience reaction, perhaps we haven’t progressed at all and, more worryingly, we have regressed.

That is what makes this anniversary revival worthwhile. It doesn’t allow East Is East to become simply a nostalgic trip back to flares, fish and chips and 1970s family life. Beneath the laughs is a play about prejudice, domestic abuse, cultural identity and the desperate human desire to belong.

It may not always find the perfect balance between its comedy and its darker material, but thirty years after it first challenged audiences, East Is East still has the capacity to make us laugh — and then make some of us question exactly what it is we are laughing at.

Reviewer: Paul Wilcox

Reviewed: 8th September 2026

North West End UK Rating: