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 differe...