“The Buddha of Suburbia” at the Barbican
Neil Dowden in City of London
4 November 2024
Hanif Kureishi’s debut 1990 novel The Buddha of Suburbia (which was soon after made into a memorable TV series) has now been adapted for the stage for the first time by Emma Rice, with Kureishi himself. The co-production by the RSC and Rice’s company Wise Children premiered at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon earlier this year and now comes to London. It’s big, colourful, and engaging, brimming with exuberant energy, though not quite capturing the darkness in the original story.
Photo credit: Steve Tanner.
Kureishi’s semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale set in seventies south London is about how the British-Asian, bisexual teenager Karim comes to terms with his own multiple identities against a social background of racism and homophobia. His stultifying upbringing in suburban Bromley is shaken up when his Indian-born, Muslim-raised, civil servant father Haroon – the title character – leaves his repressed white English mother Margaret for the sexually liberated bohemian Eva as he becomes a spiritual guru for the middle classes. Meanwhile Karim has an on/off relationship with Eva’s mixed-up wannabe rock-star son Charlie as well as having sex with his revolutionary feminist friend Jamila.
Moving into central London Karim becomes an actor and is taken up by the celebrated alternative theatre director Matthew Pyke, while falling for one of his colleagues Eleanor, who is from a privileged background but troubled by a deep psychological insecurity. Karim endures heartbreak and betrayal but emerges with a stronger sense of who he is.
Like the novel, Karim is both narrator and protagonist of the play. His opening words – spoken while spotlit into a microphone – “My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost” set the tone for this darkly comic rite of passage. Rice’s adaptation is bookended by a party celebrating Karim’s landing of a role in a TV soap opera, and starts with him introducing the main characters (alive and dead) to the audience. It is also the night of the 1979 general election which is midwife to the birth of Thatcherism. Then it rewinds to 1977 – the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee as well as the Sex Pistols’ subversively punk “God Save the Queen” – condensing Kureishi’s novel into three tumultuous years.
Photo credit: Steve Tanner.
Rice has skilfully edited out more minor characters and subplots, but still packs a lot into the almost three-hour running time. Charlie’s own self-destructive journey – and the impact this has on Karim – is rather truncated, but Jamila’s family crises feature prominently with her parents’ fractious relationship and her own arranged (and unwanted) marriage to the naïvely hapless Indian immigrant Changez. The key elements of race, sexuality, and class – as well as theatre and music – are intact, though religious and political themes are downgraded. Although we see racist thugs on the street, we don’t get a real sense of the threat the National Front posed, with Changez’s violent beating not horrifying enough.
Though there are powerful scenes and touching moments, there is a tendency towards caricature sometimes, in particular with Eleanor and Margaret’s individual mental health issues rather brushed over. But the richness of Kureishi’s multi-layered, multicultural narrative and its anarchic humour come through strongly.
Rice’s full-blooded production is characteristically dynamic and imaginatively staged – it almost feels like a musical at times, and includes a Bollywood-style number – though occasionally less would be more. The frequent sex scenes – including an orgy at Pyke’s home – are amusingly accompanied by Dionysian party poppers and fruit, while the luvvie theatrical rehearsals are hilariously sent up. As well as fourth-wall-breaking direct addresses to the audience, there is a clever meta section when Pyke seems to take over the show itself, underlining his controlling impulses.
Rachana Jadhav’s ingeniously crammed, multi-tiered set embodies the overlapping aspects of the drama and includes a bed, sofa, bathtub, red telephone box door, music posters, and racist graffiti, as well as brightly coloured balloons and glitter mirror balls. Vicki Mortimer’s superbly designed costumes – featuring paisley shirts, flared trousers, platform shoes, saris, and shalwars – evoke the culture and period of the story. The sound and video of Simon Baker and lighting of Jai Morjaria also add to the lively ambience. And the show is suffused with an eclectic mixture of music from jazz and disco, to glam rock and punk in keeping with the party mood.
Dee Ahluwalia is a charmingly informal and appealingly candid Karim, effortlessly confiding to the audience and conveying the character’s hunger for new experiences albeit some are painful life lessons. Ankur Bahl makes a sympathetically questing Haroon who needs to turn convention upside down, impressively doing yoga poses while standing on his head. Katy Owen doubles as the staidly domestic Margaret and the spontaneous but unstable Eleanor. Lucy Thackeray is the free-spirited Eva and Tommy Belshaw the hedonistic Charlie. Natasha Jayetileke gives Jamila a forceful directness, while Rina Fatania is her enterprising mother Jeeta held back by Naveed Khan’s patriarchal Anwar, and Simon Rivers is the immature but likeable Changez. And Ewan Wardrop brilliantly suggests both Pyke’s pretentiousness and manipulativeness as he abuses his position over young people trying to find their way.
