Play on the Sweeping Saga of British Sikh Family Life

Marriage Material, is Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's theater adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s acclaimed 2013 novel by the same name. The story is set in the end of the 1960s and in a corner shop in Wolverhampton, UK. Panjabi Sikh shopkeeper Bains is talking with Surinder, his 16-year-old daughter—brilliant, beautiful, and the apple of his eye. She wants to study, he wants to marry her off. The play has many such intergenerational conflicts. Rolling across several decades, the narrative charts the fortunes of one British South Asian family, where long hours and stocktaking come freighted with hopes, ambitions, torn loyalties, and painful choices. Surinder longs to step out into 1970s Britain, her sister Kamaljit wants to follow tradition and keep house. Both end up defying their parents, at great emotional cost. Their dilemmas will feel familiar to many, particularly second-generation sons and daughters. Meanwhile, the grim realities of racism assert themselves constantly. Bains, who hoped for a good life for his wife and daughters, is worn to a shadow by grinding work and endless abuse. The play begins in the wake of Enoch Powell’s notorious Rivers of Blood speech and ends in the present day, where resurgent anti-immigrant rhetoric poisons the air. Despite the tough material and Iqbal Khan’s vibrant staging—a co-production with Birmingham Rep—the tenderness at the play’s heart lights up the drama. The cast spin nimbly between characters and decades and there are particularly fine performances from Jaz Singh Deol as Kamaljit’s son, Arjan, struggling to define where he belongs, Irfan Shamji as the rival shopkeeper, and Tommy Belshaw as the salesman and wannabe poet who steals Surinder away. It is a sweeping piece but, without the depth of characterization and the texture of the novel, it too often feels rushed. Key moments don’t have enough space and complex emotions squeeze into short exchanges. The dramatic structure means that Surinder, about whom we have come to care so much, is absent for much of the second act. The play opens at Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, London on 17 Jun.