(seen at the afternoon performance on 18th June 2025)
This is the stage adaptation (by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti) of Sathnam Sanghera’s novel, which itself is inspired by Arnold Bennett’s 1908 “The Old Wives’ Tale.”
A corner shop in Wolverhampton, run by a proud Sikh Punjabi immigrant family. It’s the late 1960s, the height of the corner shop era, where bread wrapped in paper, tied with a neat string bow, always looks freshest.
The first half is basically “chhat te violin vadak” – Punjabi for “Fiddler on the Roof”. Tradition dictates everything, lives are mapped out by it, roles defined – identically to that famous musical.
Act two skips to the present day. The family still has possession of the shop, but just as in “Fiddler” one daughter has gone her own way, and the threat of displacement is real – not least thanks to the resentment of some of the local population who believe the territory theirs by right of skin colour.
Iqbal Khan is a talented director able to bring two somewhat dissociated acts together. Bhatti sets an uneven pace in both, introspective examination in the first half becoming increasingly wildly extrovert in the second. Where Bhatti almost loses control of the material, Khan is mostly able to save – only a surplus final scene turning oddly panto for the curtain.
Set and costumes by “Good Teeth” (really!) are the redbrick of the North on the walls, the soft silks of the East on the actors. The contrast is touching - warm and effective.
Same for the cast. Avita Jay is a proudly fierce matriarch, her later scenes as moving for us to watch, as for her offspring to react to. Likewise husband Jaz Singh Deol is completely credible as the self-made man who will not let go of what he loves and believes in.
Kiran Landa and Anushka Deshmukh as sisters Kamaljit and Surinder equal their parents in definition. Completely attuned to each other and their situation, then demonstrating the gulf between them in impressive fashion as they tackle two unusually vast emotional arcs.
Excellent work from Irfan Shamji as Dhandra, the man who becomes, and Omar Malik as his son and earlier as a shop assistant.
Notes too for Tommy Belshaw and Celeste Dodwell as the Goreh in the tale. Belshaw transforms from ambitious to resigned, Dodwell has fire in both caring and motivated roles.
The monkey has kept the storyline vague to avoid spoilers for readers, but it is standard “soap opera” fare with an ending that is predictable. The feel of the characters is authentic, however, even if the tale’s wrapping is slightly deceptive of the quality of the text within.
Interesting and worth seeing for the acting and presentation alone.
3 stars.