East is East, National Theatre

East is East, Ayub Khan Din’s culture-clash comedy about a British-Pakistani family, created waves when it premiered at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre studio in 1996 and was nominated for the Olivier award for Best New Comedy. It was subsequently adapted into a Bafta award-winning film in 1999, with several original cast members reprising their roles on screen. A quarter of a century on, the story continues to be considered one of the foremost works portraying Asian culture in mainstream British media.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the play, a new production of East is East is coming to the National Theatre, following a critically acclaimed stint at Birmingham Rep. Iqbal Khan (Othello, Macbeth), who directed the 2009 revival of the play in the main house at Birmingham Rep, once again directs.

The production is reopening the National's Lyttelton Theatre, which had been repurposed as a film studio for pandemic productions including its Sky Arts collaboration on Romeo and Juliet, starring Josh O'Connor and Jessie Buckley.

Set in Salford in the early 1970s, East is East is centred on the Khan family home, where Pakistani-born patriarch George Khan (Tony Jayawardena) is hell-bent on raising his family in accordance with traditional Pakistani values, while his white British wife Ella (Sophie Stanton) has adopted a more liberal approach. Then there’s his teenage children, who each have their own agendas. Abdul (Assad Zama) and Tariq (Gurjeet Singh) aren’t yet interested in marriage, while Saleem (Adonis Jenieco) is pushing artistic boundaries, Meenah (Amy Leigh Hickman) is wearing a skirt too short for her father’s liking and Sajit (Noah Manzoor) is avoiding conflict from beneath the hood of his parka.

East is East comes to the National Theatre this October for a limited three-week run.