Review West End theatre: Commercial Road | Hackney Empire | South Asian immigrants | petrol station | Ravi Aujila | Ashley Kumar

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The Review - THEATRE by JOSH LOEB
Published: 12 June 2009

Commercial Road at the Hackney Empire

Petrol station drama lacks creative fuel

COMMERCIAL ROAD
Hackney Empire

SHOW, don’t tell. It’s the golden rule of creative writing. Don’t spell things out; well-drawn characters with good lines will speak for themselves.
The trouble with Commercial Road, which won an east London writing competition, is that it neither shows nor tells us very much. It is student Mina Maisuria’s first play, but it seems more like a first draft. The characters are one-dimensional, the dialogue is boring and there is no a trace of suspense in its 90 minutes.
Set in a run-down East End petrol station-cum-convenience store staffed by South Asian immigrants and their second generation counterparts, this play is at first glance full of potential.
But it degenerates into something reminiscent of a generic episode of EastEnders. Manager Girish (Ravi Aujla), a kind of Indian Phil Mitchell, is in a permanent state of aggro. His son Sonny (Ashley Kumar) mopes about snorting cocaine and punching people.
Krishnan (Kal Aise, pictured with Alton Letto), who works long night shifts at the store, glances furtively at the mags on the top shelf. His friend Ramanathan has a penchant for such publications. This is supposed to be hilarious. At best it gets a snigger.
The fifth and final character is Feroza. A Muslim of Pakistani descent, she is teased by her Hindu boss for wearing a hijaab, which she takes off towards the end to mop up Girish’s blood after he has been assaulted by Sonny.
This might have been poignantly symbolic of something – a bridging of cultural divides or the dilemmas faced by immigrants, perhaps. But it barely registers amid the apathy induced by watching these forgettable characters.
East London’s immigrant history has inspired plays as daring as Richard Bean’s fascinating comedy England People Very Nice. But Commercial Road fails to make creative capital out of the fertile soil of east London, resulting in a skeleton of a play in need of generous fleshing out.
Until June 20
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