East is East, Trafalgar Studios

The cult comedy is back and this time brought to life at the Trafalgar Studios. Ayub Khan-Din’s East is East originally premiered as a play at the Royal Court in 1997 but it was famously adapted for the screen by FilmFour, starring Jimi Mistry and Linda Bassett.
Culture clash
The play is set in Salford, Manchester, focusing on a family with an Irish-Catholic mother and a Pakistani Muslim father. Despite an inordinate pride and love for his wife and seven children, he lays down strict guidance for them to adhere to Pakistani customs. The children, however, feel more British and as their father’s animosity increases, they move further away from their own roots. It’s a funny and truthful portrayal of family life, with a sharp, sometimes painful edge. Like day-to-day life, it veers between the hilarious and the tragic. 
Star cast
Ayub Khan-Din has called his debut play semi-autobiographical as he grew up in an Anglo-Pakistani household in the seventies.  Thrillingly, Khan-Din himself is playing the role of the father, George Khan. 
Jane Horrocks plays the role of mother Ella. Horrocks is a masterful actress with impeccable comic timing, as is evident in her TV collaborations with comedienne Victoria Wood and on the show Absolutely Fabulous. Her screen credits include The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, The Witches, Chicken Run and Mike Leigh’s Life is Sweet. But lately she has been conquering the West End. In 2009, she earned five star reviews as the lead in a revival of Anne, Get Your Gun and at the head of The Good Woman of Szechuan, both at the Young Vic. 
Producer Jamie Lloyd described East is East as a powerhouse of a play. Up-and-coming director Sam Yates is a Salford man himself and has worked both sides of the Atlantic, and until this year was Artistic Associate at the Royal & Derngate Theatres, Northampton. 
We urge you not to miss out on this beautiful, funny play. It is as relevant as ever about to the difficulties immigrants must face, while also perfectly depicting the universal similarities of family life.