Photo: Helen Murray
Writer: Shaan Sahota
Director: Daniel Raggett
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Shaan Sahota’s debut play, The Estate. a comedy, dips into dangerous waters as it centres around a Member of Parliament of Sikh heritage who is aspiring to climb to the top of the Westminster ladder. Added to politics, race, religion, gender inequality, cultural tradition and family loyalties are all thrown into the mix in a venture that, at first glance, looks foolhardy, But is it?
The play is marked by the freshness and fearlessness of a first time playwright. Sahota, a British Asian herself, has much to say about merging deeply contrasting cultures and she does so with great sensitivity and rich humour. The play begins as a political satire in the style of The Thick of It. It is one year before a General Election and the Leader of the Opposition has resigned. Angad Singh (Adeel Akhtar) sees himself as a contender for the vacancy, encouraged waveringly by his assistants, Petra (Helen Wilson) and Isaac (Fode Simbo), but discouraged by the pompous party whip, Ralph Hughes (Humphrey Ker).
The set, designed by Chloe Lanford, at first an austere Westminster office, opens out to begin a new story centring around Angad’s private life. He has a wife, Sangeeta (Dinita Gohil) and a baby daughter, but his father, who had arrived in Britain in the 1970s to work as a baggage handler, has just died. Angad’s older sisters. Malicka (Shelley Conn) and Gyan (Thusitha Jayasundera) arrive in town for the funeral and the reading of a will in which they find themselves cut out in favour of the only son, as would have been normal in the patriarchal society to which their father had belonged. The sisters are incensed and, unless Angad agrees to give them what they believe to be their fair shares, they threaten to sabotage his career with revelations of trivial misdeeds from the past.
There is enough material here to feed a meaty drama, so how does the play manage to fill the Dorfman Theatre with laughter throughout its 140-minute (including interval) running time? Aside from the writer’s wit, much credit goes to director Daniel Raggett’s beutifully balanced production and to Akhtar’s astonishing lead performance. His Angad is an underdog and a leader, surreal and human. Raggett gives free rein to Akhtar’s clowning and the introduction of physical comedy feels inspired, throwing a bright light on the lunacy of what is going on in Angel’s world.
The many serious themes are never totally overwhelmed by the production’s comic content and there is much to discuss afterwards. However, it is the lighter that will linger longest in the memory. The Estate is frantic and its focus sometimes gets fuzzy, but, when all its pieces fall into place, it is poignant and absolutely hilarious.
Performance date: 17 July 2025
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