This boisterously enjoyable, messy debut play by Mohamed-Zain Dada focuses on a demographic rarely celebrated on the stages of our major theatres: young, Pakistani-British Muslim men. The slender story of close friendship betrayed is almost secondary to the vivid rendering of its three characters’ camaraderie and their speech, which channels Kashmir through the street slang of suburban west London. Director Milli Bhatia (whose work includes the hugely acclaimed seven methods of killing kylie jenner) could have honed and focused things better, but the performances are gregarious and attractive.
The title refers to a shisha pipe flavour in Chunkyz, the hookah bar where the three men, all in their middle 20s, hang out, smoke and chat nonsense. Rashid (Arian Nik) is a baggage handler at Heathrow, semi-keen to marry the girl he’s been dating (chastely, we infer) from the age of 15, but more keen to open his own gym for middle-aged “aunties”.
Jihad (Omar Bynon) went to college and wants to be a journalist but feels blocked by white hegemony. Asif (Salman Akhtar) is assistant manager of a car hire company, living at home with his mum and younger brother.
Their core concerns are the same as all precarious twentysomethings – sex, food, accommodation, employment – but with specific religious and cultural ramifications. Their mosque won’t show a televised boxing match, even if the “haram” ring girls are pixelated out. The Jordanian lawyer Asif meets on a Muslim dating site isn’t thrilled to find he’s looking for a “wifey” to cook roti.
The shisha bar is a case in point. The boys see it as an important social hub for those who don’t drink: the authorities see it as a seed-bed for segregation and radicalisation, which should be shut down on spurious health grounds. Asif suggests Jihad makes a documentary about the bars for a competition run by a new media organisation. He does, with their contributions, but the result is twisted to fit a racist agenda.
The boldest moment comes when Jihad suggests his generation can’t always play the victim: that grooming gangs and ISIS can’t be put down to Islamophobia and must be acknowledged and owned by Muslims. But the most enjoyable bits are when the characters prattle about everyday stuff, their loose body language displaying relaxed affection as they pinball around TomaÌs Palmer’s simple set of a sunken café table and glitchy neon sign. “I love you, bruv,” is their musketeers’ slogan.
But fantasy interludes and moments of expressive movement, heralded by clouds of shisha smoke, just don’t work, and the introduction of a reworked Mary Poppins number, A Spoonful of Muslim, is simply bizarre. The scenes in which Jihad is seduced into selling his soul are clumsy and obvious. Dada has a real feel for character and atmosphere, though, and his debut is shot through with vibrancy. It’ll be fascinating to see what he does with a sterner script editor and director.
