Gelin – Canal Cafe Theatre

Güle güle gidin. Gelin is as easy going a comedy as they come. Adapted from Ibrahim Şinasi’s Şair Evlenmesi, Estelle Warner’s contemporary spin on a Turkish classic is as comforting as a cup of çay.

Both English and Turkish in its writing and its casting, this play is also hybrid in its historicity. Reimagined from the 1860 original, it takes modern London as its setting and English as its primary language yet remains rooted in Turkish tradition even as it extends tendrils into thorny modern subjects such as giving SHEIN-branded gifts or pairing pickles with Nutella.

The Canal Café Theatre is charmingly intimate, but this story is a little too thin to fill out a full flavour profile. As afraid to take up space as its reluctantly centralised heroine Aylin (Gunes Soysal), the play is thoughtfully and carefully presented, to the point that it is too tame to truly tantalise.

Aylin’s (and best friend Yaz’s) love interest, Emre (Pedro Millan Duke), is kind and courteous, but the play’s pinnacle of eroticism lies in the devouring eyes of Sevim (Duru Agirbas), Aylin’s eager mother, whose lust for life is the driving force of the story.

What the play fails to stir up in love-triangle titillation, it makes up for in a ménage of enticing colours and textures in its costume and stage design. Mingchi Yan presents each actor dripping in a resplendence almost too rich for the otherwise modest means director Erica Ross Luna employs to these ends.

Reviewer: Kira Daniels

Reviewed: 31st January 2026

North West End UK Rating: