***** Review: RSC’s Buddha of Suburbia is a coming-of-ager for the ages… rollicking and boisterous
(Five Stars *****) REVIEW: The Buddha of SuburbiaThe Swan Theatre, Stratford, until 1st June
Pass me the microphone would you? Thanks. Is this thing on? Yes? Right, before we begin, let me just say this: You don’t even want to think about missing this show.
Ok, are we all sitting comfortably? Then let’s get going. Once upon a time, before they paved over all the meadows, uprooted all the trees to plant bricks, decided we have no need of a reliable rail service, and joined all the towns together in one great big giant sprawl, there was a place called Suburbia. Suburbia was planned as a manufactured earthly paradise located physically, spiritually and symbolically halfway between the we’ve-gotta-get-out-of here-slums and the posh inner city condos and apartments, between the Rachman rat-infested rentals and the choc-y box villages, a not-quite-here-not-quite-there-land situated conveniently for access via public transport to work, schools, shops, places of worship and doctor’s surgeries, an aspirational destination for the working class have-nots who strove for more and bigger and better, mocked by the have-it-all/ know-it-alls who scoffed at folks with ideas above their station getting it all red-wine-in-the-fridge wrong.
Suburbia was semi-detacheds with stone lions on the gateposts, Sharons training to be hairdressers and Trevors fixing the Cortinas in the drive. Ian Dury’s people with their Betjeman-endorsed wood chip wallpapered palaces, massive colour TVs that looked like furniture and barbecues on the back lawn. House-proud mums and fags-and-slippers dads, they loved it, the middle-class dream. The kids, by and large, were bored and loathed it, the nowt-to-do nightmare. For every Tracy Chapman ("I know things will get better/ You'll find work and I'll get promoted/ We'll move out of the shelter/ Buy a bigger house and live in the suburbs”, Fast Car), there was a Siouxsie Sioux ("I was washing up the dishes/ Minding my own business/ When my string snapped/ I had a relapse...a suburban relapse/ Should I throw things at the neighbours/ Expose myself to strangers?/ Kill myself or…you?”, Suburban Relapse).
Siouxsie, before she joined her Banshees, was Susan Janet Ballion. Susan grew up in Chislehurst, Kent, a suburb three miles down the Widmore Road and A222 from Bromley, which is where Karim, the 17-year-old hero and narrator of our play, lived with his white housewife mum Margaret and his Indian immigrant dad Haroon. This makes Karim “an Englishman born and bred. Almost.”
The “almost” is obviously the seed for the drama. Karim’s story was originally told in Hanif Kureshi’s celebrated debut novel The Buddha Of Suburbia which was first published in 1990 and has now been adapted for the stage by the author and Emma Rice, who recently did a stint as Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. The action takes place in the late 1970s when the National Front were beginning their racist rampage, there was massive inflation, dissatisfied workers were often out on strike and a change of government - Margaret Thatcher’s grim reign - loomed dark on the horizon. “Another world, eh?” Karim jokes. “Another world.”
This troubled scenario is the undertow to the action – never overplayed, never didactic – because Buddha is a comedy, and a wonderful one at that, bursting with complicated characters striving to cope with their lot. Dee Ahluwalia is Karim, the kid who wants out and discovers his escape via acting. Ahluwalia is a casual revelation, snake-hipped with a handsome mane to die for. Ankur Bahl is his dad, Karoon, the Buddah of the title, a man searching for his place in life and attempting to find it via yoga, eastern philosophy and all that jazz. Bahl is incredible in the part, playing it ludicrous yet with such conflicted emotion that we can’t help but sympathise with him. He finds his only real satisfaction in Lucy Thackeray’s Eva, his sophisticated bit-on-the-side who seems to offer all the opportunities denied him by his mousey missus, Bettrys Jones’ Margaret. Both the ladies are pitch perfect… Look, I can’t crack on like this or I’ll exhaust you with superlatives (and ways to say wow!) so suffice to say, with apologies all round, every actor in Buddha’s 10-strong cast is utterly brilliant.
And here they all are: meet Tommy Belshaw’s Charlie, Eva’s groovy son who’s a superstar in the making, Rina Fatania’s Jeeta, the feisty embodiment of two cultures clashing, her wife-beating husband Anwar, played with seething frustration by Simon Reeves. Their daughter is Natasha Jayetileke’s Jamila, Karim’s best friend and fellow experimenter in the joy of sex. She will be married off in a sorry arrangement to Raj Bajaj’s Changez, a dufus fresh over from India who’s into Arthur Conan Doyle, dresses like Sherlock Holmes and who Jamilia will not consent to satisfy with nooky. By the way, the arranged marriage thing is handled matter-of-factly rather than hysterically which renders it all the more miserable.
The first half of the play keeps us in suburbia but Karim’s horizons are widened after the interval when he’s discovered by Ewan Wardrop’s bigshot theatrical director Matthew Pike, an absolute gem of manipulative preposterousness, who engineers a yucky orgy, gives the play a chance to go a bit meta and lampoon its own stagecraft and, later, gets his come-uppance.
As is only fit and proper concerning a tale about a teen, the plot is hormonally-driven. Everyone seems to be having it off with everyone else with great aplomb and Karim isn’t picky, getting it on with boys and girls though he’s pained and reluctant when set upon by a randy Alsatian. The sex – and there’s a lot of it – is always free and easy, played for laughs with a tongue-in-someone else’s cheek, each ecstatic orgasm celebrated with whizz-bangs and party-poppers. I’ve gotta say, though, that it’s a bit oo-er when Karim finds himself in some intimate bedroom action with Bettrys Jones’ Eleanor and Rina Fatania’s Marlene. I mean, only a few minutes ago they were playing his mum and his aunt!
Oh well, fun and games. It’s a coming-of-ager for the ages. I warrant you won’t see any theatre more rollicking and boisterous than this, but what completely did it for me were the bits where the play shifted tone to capture moments of real tenderness and beauty. The scene where Haroon explains to Margaret that he’s leaving her for Eva is so beyond sad, and beyond words as they cling to each other soundtracked by Etta James’ I’d Rather Go Blind. Had to have a little sniffle I have to admit. Charlie’s death too, done-in by heroin in a gloomy room to the ominous strains of the Velvet Underground’s Venus In Furs is devastating. And when Uncle Anwar passes away from a heart attack, having been bonked on the head by a dildo (surely the best theatrical phrase since “Exit, pursued by a bear”) there’s a lovely ghostly interchange with Haroon where the pair are young once more, back in India playing cricket. Again, there’ll be no shame in you shedding a tear.
This is a marvellously clever production. Having Karim narrate not only keeps us on track but his commentary on the incidents and his opinion of the characters allows the play to have its cake and eat it. When it stoops on occasion to caricature, for instance, Karim mops up the mess with a wry aside so we know they know what they’ve done and what they’re doing.
Only a couple of things didn’t quite ring true for me. The punks were just too cartoon punky and the way it ends, with everyone who’s still alive coming out of it with what they deserve – even the cuckolded Changez with his “commune baby” – felt a mite contrived.
Here, give me back that mic. Ta. Kureishi and Rice have been doing a lot of pre-publicity to sell the show which has been illuminating. Talking about the ‘70s, the author told the media: “There was a sense that you could do anything or be anyone. The racism was definitely more overt than it is today, but there was still a terrific sense of optimism - in fact, it was the last age where people were hopeful of the future… Everyone’s much more pessimistic now. I think people in the ‘70s really believed in the future, certainly with regards to music, fashion, the media and photography. Karim and his friend Charlie really believe they can make it, that they can be pop stars. But I don’t think my kids are optimistic like that about Britain and the future at all…. Still, writing, theatre, acting and music are really what we’re good at in this country. That’s our reason to be optimistic.”
I actually went to suburbia once, to Sidcup, Kent to visit my auntie Bette and uncle Jack. Bette was one of my mum’s many sisters. Bette and Jack had two sons whose names now escape me. Both were older than me and I immediately idolised them for their city slicker ways, paisley-pattered shirts with button-down collars, their scooters on the drive, the Bowie posters in their bedrooms and the fact that they had Radio London to listen to. It was all so wonderful. I was enthralled.
About a decade later I heard on the grapevine that Jack, who was a policeman, had retired. And on the very day he left the force, he packed a suitcase, met up with a lady friend that no-one in the family knew anything about, and emigrated to Australia. As Roxy Music predicted back in 1973, In Every Dream Home A Heartache. I guess the grass is always greener, somewhere else and there you have it.
Oh, and please be warned, you’ll never want to go near a banana again.
