Empireland author and novelist tells us the play deals with subjects that were not quite in focus in the same way when he wrote the original ‘Marriage Material’ novel…
FUNNY, epic and still a hoot, ‘Marriage Material’ the newly adapted play from Sathnam Sanghera’s debut novel of the same title, is well worth your time and money.
If you like theatre and want to see a slice of South Asian life in all its glory, absurdity and joy – this is unmissable in a sense.
It’s a picture of life as it was for the earliest immigrants – and brings us right up to 2025.
“The ending is definitely better,” Sathnam Sanghera told www.asianculturevulture.com before the play had its world premiere at the Lyric Theatre in London, in late May.
It just has now transferred to the Birmingham Rep on a short run. (See link below).
Directed by Iqbal Khan and developed by by The Rep and The Lyric, it’s great to see a play that has depth and substance but isn’t too heavy or judgemental. (See our review here).
The novel has been adapted by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, one of the country’s leading playwrights and a sometime chronicler of Sikh life in Britain.
“It’s a drama that takes place over 50 years and there’s a lot more to it (than is in the novel),” Sanghera continued.
Since the novel’s publication in 2013, a lot has happened in the British Asian world: we have had a British Asian PM, Rishi Sunak, the first; Brexit has divided everyone; and showed that some Asians want to close the door on others and are proud to do so; and there have been the so called ‘race riots’ of last summer – where racism was openly and violently and sometimes even proudly and shamelessly displayed…
“There’s references to all these things in the play,” revealed Sanghera warming to his theme on the phone.
‘Marriage Material’ isn’t a state of Britain play but there are echoes of how one set of folks – first generation Asians think and how differently their children and grandchildren will emerge.
One of its undoubted its strengths is the intergenerational aspect of the drama – three generations are covered and you see change & growth in compressed time.
Up front and early on – the drama revolves around two young secondary school-going sisters – Kamaljit (Kiran Landa) and Surinder (Anoushka Desmukh) and their parents, Mr Bains (Jaz Deol), very much the patriarch and Mrs Bains (Avita Jay) who have come over from Punjab to make a new life for themselves running a shop in the Midlands.
Bains senior is already old and in ill health when the play starts and the drama is mostly in this section between mother and daughters with young Indian Punjabi immigrant Tanvir (Omar Malik) helping out in the shop too.
ACV had not seen the play when it talked to Sanghera; unlike the novel, the play is divided into the 1960s and then contemporary times as we come up to date with Arjan, (Deol in a dual role) who is middle class, arty and a little up himself, if you’ll excuse the phrase.
His grandfather (Mr Bains) is but a memory and Dhanda (Irfan Shamji), his father’s best mate has lived to a ripe old age and has a son, Ranjit (Malik in another dual role) of similar age to Arjan.
The transition from working class to middle class is superbly depicted in the second half – Arjan is a graphic designer and has mixed emotions returning to the shop his family still run.
His mum (Kamaljit) and remaining family are still committed to it and see their identity through it. His father has now passed and so Arjan to return ‘home’. Surinder is no longer in touch with anyone and the family invent a tale that simply wipes her adult existence from the slate. We can’t say any more – it would be a terrible spoiler.
Things are jumbled and messed up but no one wants to address any of that: South Asian taboos around honour and community obedience abound.
“I feel like I wrote a novel about Brexit before it happened.
“I wrote it three years too early – so it’s great to get another opportunity to tinker with the story,” explained Sanghera, describing the essential changes from novel to play.
Surinder (Anoushka Desmukh)
In bringing the play into 2025 – there’s a great(er) sweep of time – when Kamaljit and Tanvir get together (a little unexpectedly back in the day) they have dreams for Arjan that will be realised and not…
The young Arjan may not be a practising Sikh and is engaged to a white woman but he is the living embodiment in many ways of two main cultures melding and moulding the one mind – sometimes well, sometimes not so much.
There are echoes of other South Asian plays we have seen – ‘A Tupperware of Ashes’ and even, the musical ‘Come Fall in Love’. They say something about the British Asian community and experience.
“There’s lots of encouraging stuff happening,” said Sanghera whose most recent book has dealt with the legacy of Empire (in the South Asian context primarily – see below).
“I think there’s a difference between the way people are, and the way real people are in this country, and that’s all quite positive,” chimed the Cambridge University English graduate and Times journalist, whose first book, a memoir, ‘The Boy with the Top Knot’ (2009) dealt with growing up and his family’s secretiveness and father’s mental health issues. It also charted his own story from Wolverhampton grammar school to Cambridge and working on the FT and Times.
More recently and almost daily, Sanghera’s had his fair share of trolls, racists and those who tell him to go back ‘home’ after ‘Empireland’ came out.
“It’s politics and the social media and that’s a very different thing,” he pointed out to acv, noting how different people react to his work.
“Social media radicalises the politicians and it is the biggest problem we have in this country.”
His general mailbag is far more positive, he pointed out.
“Most are from students and teachers and those who want to engage in a constructive way, I think that is Britain, really…”
Some thought ‘Marriage Material’ was a memoir too – he was single at the time of its publication – he announced his engagement in an Instagram post earlier this year.
“Marriage Material’ is still a story I made up,” he emphasised, chuckling. “My personal life keeps on infecting my work, whatever I do.”
Not much chance of that with his next book which is coming out next year. It is about a national treasure called George Michael – the pop star who became an artist in the wider sense.
“I don’t feel like he’s been given enough credit and there’s also an Empire connection – his father came from Cyprus (a British colony),” he told acv.
Listings/Links
‘Marriage Material’ , the play has just started at Birmingham Rep (July 2-5)…
More info/tickets: here
‘Empireland: How Imperalism has shaped Modern Britain’ – here
‘The Boy with the Topknot: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies’ – here
Previously on ‘Marriage Material’ the novel…
https://asianculturevulture.com/portfolios/a-nation-of-shopkeepers-finds-a-novel-voice/
