What is it like being a young British Asian? That is the question addressed by Tanika Gupta's new play, which christens Hampstead Theatre's 80-seat education studio. But, while the space is seductive and the play lively, I was rarely shocked into new awareness by the answers Gupta provides.
The majority of the six teenagers on view are inevitably disaffected. Seventeen-year-old Tasleema is under pressure from her dad to marry a nice Bengali boy, while her Hindu chum, Lux, is hassled for hanging out with a white guy embarrassingly named Fidel by his left-wing parents. Meanwhile, Omar, whose parents have returned to Bangladesh, has turned into a moody troublemaker whose only real chum is 14-year-old Quasim, constantly scorned for his mixed-race parentage. The only one who totally embraces British life is 19-year-old Afghan, Hassan, who faces deportation.
Gupta certainly touches on many issues in 75 minutes: the women's perception that Asian blokes are "losers", the Muslim guys' rejection of the parents' work ethic and resentment of a country that "doesn't like foreigners" and the Afghan's fear of being returned to Kabul with its bombed-out houses and concern about the Taliban. But, having accurately exposed the group's internal tensions and external threats, Gupta resolves the individual problems rather too neatly. You feel that the logic of her play is despair at the plight of disadvantaged young British Asians, but, at the same time, her instinctive optimism leads her to suggest there is hope in dual identity and mixed-race relationships.
Whatever its contradictions, the play clearly went down a bomb with the young people in the audience, which is what really matters. Paul Miller's production, played against Simon Daw's vivid backdrop, evoking both an Indian sweetshop and the kaleidoscopic vivacity of Asian culture, is also acted with supreme assurance, especially by Paven Virk as the sexually outgoing Lux, Christopher Simpson as the angry, uncle-defying Omar and Elyes Gabel as the harassed Hassan who wants only to stay in Britain.
I did learn one intriguing fact: that the mobile phone, far from being a source of liberation, actually offers an extra weapon of control to fossilised Asian parents.
· Until April 12. Box office: 020-7722 9301.
