Immigrant people very nice!

An amateurs look at Richard Bean’s England People Very Nice
Emdad Rahman

Ah, the age old fascination with Spitalfields rises to the fore once again. Just what is about this great part of London that draws artistes like a magnet. After all, there are many parts of London with equal, if not greater heritage.

In light of the recent furore surround Richard Bean’s England People Very Nice, armed with my pencil, notebook and accompanied by my trusty sidekick, I donned my angry man hat and trudged down to the National Theatre.

The evening mission was to watch the much maligned “England People Very Nice” and if necessary, to publicly castigate the brains behind the production.

Getting into angry man mode was easy, the Satnav went haywire. We parked a mile off, and trudged down the Thames path in the rain, arriving cold, wet, miserable and 10 minutes late. I was slightly miffed by then and we were lead to our seats a further ten minutes later by the late arrivals escort person. Though I did try, I could not do a very good job. The fundamental flaw, the spanner in the works, resulted primarily due to my thorough enjoyment of the production.

Billed a riotous journey through 4 waves of immigration, I’d even prepared a front page report on the controversial play slated by segments of the community and even the Evening Standard.

“I have never had a more uncomfortable or unpleasant experience at the National Theatre than at the premiere of Richard Bean’s England People Very Nice,” wrote Nicholas De Jongh.

“I hated this gross, cartoon history of English reaction to four centuries of refugees arriving in London’s East End — the Huguenots facing persecution in France and the suffering Irish, Russian Jews in the late 19th century and the influx of Bangladeshis less than 50 years ago.”

Speaking to BBC Two's Newsnight Review, Shadow Children's Secretary Michael Gove said he was surprised the "dramatically appalling" work could be staged in the National Theatre; "I thought that the humour was vulgar, raucous, obvious. It made Alf Garnett seem sophisticated," he added.

The main focus of the play is immigration, with Bethnal Green the chosen setting, home to the largest Bangladeshi community in the world, outside of Bangladesh of course. An area where after the Danes and Saxons, the Huguenots settled after fleeing France. They were followed by the Irish and Jews.

Immigrants and multicultural Britain have both come an awfully long way since Margaret Thatcher affirmed that immigrants were “swamping” Britain, and more than anything, I took offence at the racist stereotyping and portrayal of the”!*&^%$£ Micks!,” Irish criminals who were shown to be specialising commonly and openly in incest.

Protesters led ably by our very own local playright Hussain Ismail (we grew up in the same neighbourhood) even stormed the stage in a historical move seen for the first time in the 32-year history of the theatre.

Though the play touched on aspects of immigrant contribution, it mostly painted a picture of a dismal life for immigrants. It thoroughly failed to highlight how immigrants have enriched, added and improved their new settings.

Some will rightfully argue that England People Very Nice will add to the new found promotion, tolerance and acceptance of racist jokes and stereotypes - see Ann Winterton’s “sharks going for a Chinese,” after the Morecambe Bay disaster, where at least 21 Chinese cockle pickers drowned.

As I have always argued in the past, the protesters have done Bean a massive favour by providing priceless publicity, ensuring theatregoers and those with little interest in the arts are paying good money and turning out in droves to witness the ‘controversy’ for themselves.

The thread prevalent through my conversations with friends, relatives and acquaintances has been quite consistent and along the lines of; “I might go and check it out to see what the fuss is about.”
Back to the play - The gags weren’t too bad, though some were awkward , others were hilarious. Authenticity within the play was questionable in some areas. Bangladeshi elders do not dress like that, it was more reminiscent of our Gujarati neighbours.

For me, the highlights were the leftie parents and awesome was the philosophical lone bar drinker.
I think there are 2 points at play here; his artistic limitations and the fact that it may be genuinely difficult for Bean to accept that there are Muslims out there who are normal, intelligent, reasoned and extremely civilised.

I’d only seen Christmas Panto at the Stratford East 2 years ago, and Jack & the beanstalk as a child and though limited in this regards I am of the opinion that London theatre is the best on the planet.

Despite the criticism, for me it was rather a smashing play and I enjoyed it throughout. The play addresses and pokes fun at stereotypes. The key word here is stereotypes. It doesn’t go out to spread false rumours about any communities, and was like watching a stage version of East is East. It also addressed and allayed the confusion, anger and in some cases fear, of the indigenous Cockney.