Rafta, Rafta…

Published Monday 30 April 2007 at 14:30 by John Thaxter

Nicholas Hytner’s genius for seeing old plays in a new light most recently brought catwalk modernity to Restoration comedy, but none of his translations of time and fashion have worked quite so well as discovering that a droll Lancastrian comedy of the sixties is perfectly mirrored by contemporary British-Asian family life in Bolton.

Bill Naughton’s down to earth All In Good Time explored the problems of newlyweds starting married life in a two-up two-down, their sex life made difficult with the groom’s parents in the next bedroom, and the family scandal ensuing when six weeks later the marriage has still not been consummated.

Commissioned by Hytner, playwright Ayub Khan-Din who enjoyed huge success a decade ago with East Is East, has created a seamless new comedy about a close-knit north country Indian family. All of Naughton’s gags and situations are still firmly in place, plus ample opportunities for a sublimely funny turn by Bollywood actor Harish Patel, a master of timing and reactive comedy, as the paterfamilias who never quite grasps the situation, and Meera Syal as his plain speaking wife.

Roksaneh Ghawam-Shahidi and Ronny Jhutti give lively, attractive performances as the young lovers and their growing frustration and resentment with each other. But the dramatic focus is on the two sets of parents whose own marital situations are painfully explored in a revealing four-way discussion, recalling the hurt of a three in a room Blackpool honeymoon and the jealousy of the bride’s mother at being excluded by her husband’s indulgence of his daddy’s girl.¬†

The resources of the vast Lyttelton stage are brilliant deployed by Tim Hatley, whose design offers the entire four-room household on the giant revolve, with between-scene rearrangements glimpsed behind a vast gauze, featuring a neat and tidy row of northern terrace houses.