Ab Khan Din Plays: One (NHB Modern Plays)

Ab Khan Din

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781780015132
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

This collection of plays written and introduced by actor-turned-writer Ab Khan Din charts the development of a writer able to turn the tumultuous experience of life in modern Britain into satisfying, humane and often richly comic drama.

Whether drawing on his own childhood, growing up in an Anglo-Pakistani family in Salford, or on E.R. Braithwaite's account of racial tensions in the East End in To Sir, With Love, he depicts the struggles of individuals to come to terms with their conflicting cultural legacies- and he does so with unerring warmth and compassion.

East is East (1996) is an irresistible comedy set in multiracial Salford in 1970, where the Khan children are buffeted this way and that by their Pakistani father's insistence on tradition, their English mother's laissez-faire and their own wish to be citizens of the modern world. The film adaptation that followed, with a screenplay by the author, became one of the most successful British films ever made. The version included here is the revised text first performed at the Trafalgar Studios in 2014.

The short, elegiac play, Notes on Falling Leaves (2004), is an emotionally tender depiction of a young man as he loses his mother to dementia, 'overwhelming in its emotional impact' ( Telegraph ).

In All the Way Home (2011), a quarrelsome group of siblings gathers at the family home under the shadow of impending loss. Amidst the cut and thrust of spiky Salford banter, long-harboured resentments rise to the surface and family bonds unravel and unwind.

To Sir, With Love (2013), based on E.R. Braithwaite's autobiographical novel, is the uplifting story of a talented, idealistic young teacher discovering the reality of life as a black man in Britain after the Second World War as he struggles to find a way to connect with his students at a tough but progressive East End school.

ALL THE WAY HOME

All the Way Home was first performed by The Library Theatre Company at The Lowry, Salford, on 29 September 2011. The cast was as follows:

JANET	Susan Cookson
CAROL	Kate Anthony
SONIA	Julie Riley
PHILLIP	Paul Simpson
AUNTIE SHEILA	Judith Barker
SAMANTHA	Naomi Radcliffe
BRIAN	Sean Gallagher
MICKEY	James Foster
Director	Mark Babych
Designer	Hayley Grindle
Lighting Designer	Ciaran Bagnall
Sound Designer	Paul Gregory

Characters

JANET, forty-five

CAROL, forty-nine

SONIA, thirty-nine

PHILLIP, thirty-seven

AUNTIE SHEILA, seventies

SAMANTHA, thirty-nine

BRIAN

MICKEY

ACT ONE

Scene One

Salford, Bonfire Night, present day.

The back kitchen of a terraced house. The set is a skeleton of a kitchen. We can see through it. Pipes, taps and wires should all be free-standing, with just the bare carcasses and shelves of cupboards. The only furniture, a mismatched fake Chippendale table, with six chairs, and a battered armchair. The armchair should bear the greasy stains from the head and hands of someone that has sat there regularly. This chair is never used by any of the characters.

There are bars on the outside of the windows. A door leads out to a backyard, another to the rest of the house. Various types of fireworks should go off intermittently throughout the play. From the back entry we hear kids singing.

KIDS (voice-over).

This way my lady oh!

That way my lady oh!

This way my lady oh!

All the way home.

JANET, forty-five, stands ironing clothes from a large basket of washing. A man’s shirts hang, ironed, on the cupboards behind her. She’s always on the go. Cleaning and tidying up. CAROL, forty-nine, sits at the table flicking through a newspaper. Both women smoke and drink tea.

On the table is a baby monitor. It has a big smiley clown’s face. The sound is turned down, but we can see lights moving in an arc across the face, lighting up the smile and indicating someone breathing. JANET and CAROL are both aware of this. A kettle is boiling on the stove.

Here comes a sailor!

And here comes another one.

Sexy as the other one,

All the way home.

CAROL walks over to the back door and opens it.

This way my lady oh!

That way my lady oh!

CAROL. Michaela, can you keep it down please?

KIDS (voice-over).

This way my lady oh!

All the way home.

CAROL. Michaela!… Could you keep it down, you know your Uncle Frankie’s not well.

MICHAELA (voice-over). Fuck off, you’re not me mam!

KIDS (voice-over).

Here comes a soldier!

And here comes another one!

Buggers all the other ones!

All the way home!

We hear the sound of breaking glass. Michaela screams, the others join in and we hear them run off. CAROL comes back, she and JANET shake their heads. JANET puts more water into the iron and lights a cigarette.

CAROL. Mouthy little cow.

JANET. I’ll do this lot and I’ll swing an ’oover round the front room…

CAROL. Yeah?

JANET. Yeah… Perhaps I should do the bathroom first… I meant to do it last night before I went to bed…

CAROL. I’ll do it later.

JANET. I don’t mind, I’ve gotta put some clean sheets on our Phillip’s bed, anyway.

Beat.

I don’t know how me mam managed with us lot.

CAROL. Me and Frankie used to look after you, Brian and Phillip. Sonia were still in a pram.

JANET. Still a lot though, eh?

CAROL. I said I don’t mind doing the bathroom.

JANET. No, leave it to me. I know what needs to be done, regarding Frankie’s sheets and that… He’s a bit funny about things like that now… You know… about ’em being handled by anyone else.

Pause.

I’ll stick some tea on first though, eh?… Yeah, that’s what I’ll do next. Are you stopping for your tea?

CAROL. Might do. What’re you doing?

JANET. Tater hash, I think… Our Phillip likes it.

CAROL. He likes it the way me mam cooked it.

JANET. I don’t use corned beef. I use mince.

CAROL. That’ll be it then… I always find it leaves a greasy aftertaste at the back of me tongue – mince.

JANET. It’s a different butcher you need. I get mine minced in front of me. I can see what I’m getting then.

CAROL. I won’t stop. I never liked tater hash.

JANET. Maybe I’ll ask Frankie what he fancies…

CAROL. Yeah?

JANET. I’ll ask him. He likes to be kept in the loop.

CAROL. He were asleep when I looked in before.

JANET. I’ll ask him later then. Give us a chance to tidy up his room. Give it a bit of an airing.

JANET gives the steamer button a press and it sends out a couple of jets of steam. CAROL goes back to reading the paper. She hums the tune sung by the kids.

CAROL. They found the head of that headless corpse.

JANET. I heard.

CAROL. Salford Precinct.

Pause.

JANET. Wonder what were it doing there?

CAROL looks at her incre...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Foreword
• East is East
• Notes on Falling Leaves
• All the Way Home
• To Sir, With Love
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information