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”.
