What happens when the legacy of a father collides with the dreams of his son?
Widow Jeeto Gill has spent her life working hard and making sacrifices for her children. Now she looks forward to going back to her land in the Punjab, eating saag and roti on a verandah and letting her tired eyes rest on green fields. Her son Pal seems to have it all but he's restless. He's got big plans for his Daddy's business and a taste for Johnny Walker Black Label. However his kind-hearted wife Liz has her own ideas about what's best. Meanwhile Pal's sharp-tongued sister Cookie runs the tackiest beauty salon in town and harbours a dark secret. When their cousin's destitute wife, Reema, arrives from back home, the Gills propose to take care of her. Little do they know that her arrival will change the course of their family's destiny forever.
" This play] about the tensions and tenacity of family life that not only got the warmest of receptions but that also says a lot about the peculiar predicaments facing British Asians... Bhatti writes excellently about the double-edged nature of inheritance and] shows family ties are both a blessing and a curse, she also creates complex characters." -
Guardian "A wise and sympathetic play about issues that can tear households apart and what "home" means." -
Financial Times "A shrewdly observed tragicomedy about the tensions between two generations of a family." -
Independent "A beautifully nuanced, Indian family drama." -
Telegraph "Bhatti's handling of sometimes humorous and bitter situations provides an insightful and subtle reflection on all family relationships." -
Stage "An absorbing Chekhovian tragicomedy... A beautifully observed and subtly written play in which big issues underpin the entertaining surface of domestic comedy. In less assured hands the Asian -between- cultures can seem a clich , but here you can see that it is likely to provide rich material for many years to come." -
Birmingham Post
Bhatti, Gurpreet Kaur: -
Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti writes for stage, screen and radio. Her first play Behsharam (Shameless) broke box office records at Soho Theatre and the Birmingham Rep. Behzti (Dishonour) was sensationally closed after protests at the Birmingham Rep in December 2004. Behzti won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the play was then translated into French and did sell-out tours in France and Belgium. Behud (Beyond Belief) was co-produced by Soho Theatre and Coventry Belgrade and shortlisted for the John Whiting Award. Khandan had a sell out run at the Birmingham Rep before transferring to the Royal Court.
Her latest play A Kind Of People opened at the Royal Court Downstairs in December 2019.
Other credits include Elephant, Birmingham Rep; Dishoom, Rifco/Watford Palace Theatre, Fourteen, Watford Palace Theatre; the feature film Everywhere And Nowhere; DCI Stone, Radio 4; Londonee, Rich Mix; Dead Meat, Channel 4 and An Enemy Of The People (BBC World Service).
Her first collection of plays, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti: PLAYS ONE, is published by Oberon Books.
She is currently writing screenplays for Moonage Pictures, Cuba Pictures and Martha Stone Productions. She is also adapting Sathnam Sanghera's Marriage Material for the Birmingham Rep.
