Theatre: Happy Birthday Sunita
A jolly family of three generations of British South Asians took up 15 seats in the stalls of the Theatre Royal, Windsor, and chuckled their way through two short acts of Happy Birthday Sunita.
They were having a hugely happier time than the dysfunctional Johal family portrayed on stage as the characters aired their dirty laundry in a kitchen sink comedy.
The set is like an advert for Wren kitchens, all sleek and shiny with new appliances that are hardly used in case the cooking causes a smell. The cabinets are bursting full of skeletons raring to get out. This is the setting for Sunita’s surprise birthday party.
Sunita (Bhawna Bhawsar) is 40, works in the council planning department, apparently friendless, and aggrieved she was never allowed to take up her place at Imperial College to study physics. She so doesn’t want a secret birthday party.
Her mother, brother and sister-in-law disagree. But where’s the birthday cake? Will the absentee father return from India to join the celebrations?
Tensions bubble to the surface like simmering dhal in this samosa saga. There are two decades of conflict and marital discord under the surface where family is everything and keeping up appearances is paramount.
Each family member is hiding their own secret. And each revelation makes for humour that lurches between hilarity and poignancy.
For hilarity we were treated to Harleen (Rameet Rauli). A diminutive figure in scarlet and gold she teeters around stage as a wannabe fashion designer who can’t cook but assiduously checks packaging to ensure ingredients suit her intolerances. It has to be butter-free roti. But she’s not intolerant of Prosecco, necking her way through bottles of bubbly that she insists on calling Champagne. She is a compulsive hugger _ however reluctant the recipient.
As the high maintenance daughter-in-law of matriarch Tejpal (Divya Seth Shah) puts career above motherhood while her long-suffering husband of 10 years and two months, just wants babies.
Nav (Devesh Kishore), area manager for O2, went against his Sikh faith to cut off his hair to please her and her posh family and friends. The illuminated portrait of Guru Nanak Dev Ji on the kitchen wall looks down impassively at this disclosure.
Throw into this rich family mix a Cockney who has rather too vivid memories of National Front action in East End London during his youth and you have another seam ready to mine for uncomfortable comedy.
Armani-wearing widower Maurice (Keiron Crook) is the builder of Teipal’s high-end kitchen extension that’s over-budget and taken a year to complete. ‘You lot love your extensions don’t you?’ brings gasps and gales of laughter. It’s a Goodness Gracious Me sort of moment.
His ‘friendship’ with Teipal outrages the family. ‘He doesn’t speak Punjabi,’ screeches Harleen.
‘Neither do you!’ comes the riposte.
Written by Hollyoaks actress Harvey Virdi, this popular play premiered in 2014 and comes from Rifco Theatre Company. It has been revived with a fresh line-up and a script that makes it relevant in a post-Brexit and post-pandemic world.
A Director’s programme note from Pravesh Kumar says: ‘I have been struck by how much our attitudes changed in the past decade, but also by the stigma that remains around open discussion. Family remains family, each with its own secrets and conflicts, and it can be an institution frustratingly resistant to change.’
The Johal family is endearingly frustrating, ripe for change and exasperatingly entertaining.
The family in Row J loved them.
