‘East Is East’ could not be written today, says author

“WHITE liberal theatre practitioners” would not allow East Is East to be written today because it presents a complex portrait of a British-pakistani family, the play’s dramatist has said.

Ayub Khan Din, who wrote the Olivier Award-nominated play in 1996, made the comments as a new production opened at Birmingham Rep to mark its 25th anniversary.

The autobiographical comedy-drama tells the story of the Khans, a workingclass family who run a fish and chip shop in Salford in the 1970s. George Khan, the family patriarch, wants to raise his seven children in line with his Pakistani traditions. His increasingly anglicised children push back, rejecting his rules on food, religion, dress and other social mores, while their mother, Ella, a British Roman Catholic of Irish descent, holds the family together.

The play’s dialogue has numerous references to period-faithful ethnic slurs, with the plot tackling sensitive issues of arranged marriages, circumcision and domestic violence.

In a Q&A to mark the play’s 25th anniversary, Mr Khan Din was asked whether it would be as easy for him to write about such topics now with as much confidence as he had in 1996. He said: “The problem would be white liberal theatre practitioners stopping me from saying things. It’s weird. It’s as if things have come full circle.

“They couldn’t give a flying f--- about putting Asian or brown faces on television or what was said about them.

“Now, they’re so concerned about what we write about ourselves and what people write about us that they stop it. It’s the same people who wouldn’t allow us the platform [who] are now being overprotective about the platform they’ve now given us.”

The play will run until Sept 25 at Birmingham Rep, where it had its premiere in 1996, and then at the National Theatre in London from Oct 7 to 30.