There’s a reason why East is East was such a hit. It showed us something we hardly ever see on stage or screen: a working-class Muslim family. Ayub Khan-Din’s play, produced by Tamasha in 1996 (also a hit film in 1999) was set in the Seventies, but the action still feels so alive and relevant today. It’s a kitchen sink family drama centred around a culture that society hasn’t connected with the kitchen sink genre. In fact, the everyday struggles of ordinary people that define the kitchen sink genre are extremely common in working-class South Asian homes. There have been a number of depictions of conservative South Asian households on our televisions. These haven’t been wrong, necessarily – but it’s a restricted kind of representation. Failing to cast a broader lens on lesser shown pockets within the culture means that we’re missing the chance to see the complicated, roaring, non-subservient South Asian women.
I wanted to bring those women to the stage when I came to write my play, Favour, which is opening at the Bush Theatre this week. It’s a story about a working-class Muslim family living in Ilford who are impacted by the criminal justice system and addiction. It’s centred around three generations of women and how they survive the impact and understand the consequences of both of those things.
