Review | East is East at Chichester Festival Theatre: 'Walks a clever theatrical tightrope'

The play tells the story of a Pakistani man and his family, born of his British wife, in Salford in the early 1970s.

George Khan’s Pakistani homeland is, itself, in the middle of political turmoil, a situation reflected in the Khan family.

George is determined his children will be brought up in the Pakistani way; wife, Ella, realises that while east is very much east, the children of this family are very much western; born here, raised here, speaking only English and with most of them Muslim only in name.

To bring further confusion to the situation, George is now determined to marry two of his boys off for personal reasons of his own; the feelings of the boys, of course, mean nothing.

This culture-clash, presented here from the eastern viewpoint, gives rise to a wide range of emotional response from an audience; it walks a clever theatrical tightrope invoking humour, anger, frustration and sadness – and all believably so.

The direction and the technical aspects of the show are clever and slick and pleasing – and the cast peopling the stage are good.

Tony Jayawardena could easily make George a caricature; he doesn’t.

George is real and through Jayawardena we can understand his belief-system even if we disagree with it.

As wife, Ella, Sophie Stanton balances this, giving us an earthy northerner.

Her onstage relationship with neighbour and pal Annie – the wonderful Rachel Lumberg – is the root of much of the play’s humour. The two of them are a joy.

Top marks, too, to Irvine Iqbal paying two parts and being unrecognisable as the same actor in each. That’s real talent.

George and Ella’s seven children Meenah (Amy-Leigh Hickman), Saleem (Adonis Jenieco), Sajit (Noah Manzoor), Maneer (Joeravar Sangha), Tariq (Gurjeet Singh) and Abdul (Assad Zaman) create fine ensemble play – but acting honours, should they be given, must go to Noah Manzoor whose Sajit is a work of wonder. He plays the character’s disability as a fact of life; it is not emphasised, it is underplayed and is a thing of dramatic beauty.

Well worth a trip.

Until Saturday.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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