By Grace Hatchell
Ayub Khan Din’s East is East returns in a new 30th anniversary production directed by Kash Arshad, opening at Octagon Theatre Bolton before visiting Derby Theatre, Citizens Theatre Glasgow and Salisbury Playhouse.
Some stories don’t just come back around — they arrive with the weight of memory tucked under their arm.
And East is East is one of those.
A new 30th anniversary production of Ayub Khan Din’s award-winning play is heading out across the UK this autumn, opening at the Octagon Theatre Bolton from Friday 4 September to Saturday 3 October 2026, before travelling to Derby Theatre from Tuesday 20 to Saturday 24 October, as well as Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, and then Wiltshire Creative’s Salisbury Playhouse in early November.
That alone would be enough to get people talking, but this isn’t just a revival for revival’s sake. This new production will be directed by Kash Arshad, and if you know the play, you’ll know why that matters. East is East has never been one of those pieces that sits politely on a shelf looking important. It’s lively, sharp, bruising, funny, and painfully human all at once.
First staged in Birmingham in 1996 by Tamasha Theatre Company in co-production with the Royal Court and Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Ayub Khan Din’s modern classic has long held its place as a story that says something real about identity, family and belonging. It’s set in early 1970s Salford, where the Khan family are living above a chip shop and right on the fault line between two cultures. George Khan wants to raise his children in line with his Pakistani heritage, while his English wife Ella is trying to keep the peace. Meanwhile, their seven children are off discovering disco, denim and defiance. And when George starts arranging marriages for his sons, things begin to erupt.
That’s the brilliance of East is East, really. It can make you laugh, then catch you off guard a moment later with something that lands right in your chest.
The production is co-produced by Octagon Theatre Bolton, Citizens Theatre and Wiltshire Creative, in association with Derby Theatre.
And Kash Arshad’s connection to the material feels deeply personal. In the press release, he says: “East is East is my story. There are not many plays that speak to the experience of being brought up in a Muslim household, with a white British mother and a Pakistani father, who ran his own business, with kids who felt not British enough to be British nor Pakistani enough to be Pakistani.” He also describes the play as “raucous, moving, full of truth and really funny.”
That tells you a lot, I think.
This isn’t a director dropping in to polish up a known title. This sounds like someone meeting a story that already lives somewhere inside him.
Ayub Khan Din, who grew up in Salford, wrote East is East while at drama school, and the play later became a highly successful feature film. Over the years, both stage and screen versions have collected major recognition, including the Evening Standard Best Film Award, the Writers’ Guild Award for Best New Writer, Best West End Play and the John Whiting Award for Best Stage Play.
At Derby Theatre, audiences will be able to catch the run from 20 to 24 October 2026, with a BSL interpreted performance on Thursday 22 October at 7.30pm. The production is recommended for ages 14+ and includes themes of racism and domestic violence, as well as strong language.
And I’ll be honest, there’s something fitting about East is East reaching audiences again now.
Because the best plays don’t just survive. They keep finding new people, new rooms, new moments to speak into. They remind one generation of what they knew already, while handing the next one a story that still feels alive enough to argue with.
So yes, this one’s got anniversary status. Yes, it’s a modern classic. Yes, it has the history.
But more importantly than all that, it still sounds like it’s got bite.
And if a play can still do that thirty years on — still make people laugh, wince, remember, and maybe see their own family a little differently on the way home — then that’s not just a comeback.
That’s staying power.
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