The Estate, National Theatre review - hugely entertaining, but also unconvincing

The first rule for brown people, says the main character – played by BAFTA-winner Adeel Akhtar – in this highly entertaining dramedy, is not to let white people know how badly non-whites treat each other. This provocative statement comes towards the end of Shaan Sahota’s debut, The Estate, and with hilarious irony it perfectly describes the main vibe of the family conflict at the heart of the play.

Staged in the National Theatre’s Dorfman space, and one of the final productions programmed by former artistic director Rufus Norris, the play tells the story of a British Sikh politician whose newfound ambition to be leader of the Opposition is threatened by his own inability to escape the most corrosive effects of his father’s influence. But can Sahota balance these two strands, the personal and the political?

The most emotionally grounded storyline concerns the relationship between Angad (Akhtar), a junior shadow minister, and his older sisters. They are Gyan, the eldest and an overworked GP, and Malicka, the middle child and the one most critical of their upbringing. The plot begins with the death of their father, a Punjabi immigrant who rose from being an airport baggage handler to super businessman, and who has left the large estate of rental properties which gives the play its name. When his will is read, this inheritance has been bequeathed solely to Angad, the youngest child but the sole male heir.

This demonstration of patriarchal power, with its obvious undervaluing of the female children, is immediately accepted by Angad – and contested by Malicka (vigorously) and Gyan (more tentatively). They point out their father’s faults and his sexism, and remind their brother, who feels guilty about neglecting his filial duties, that he has previously agreed to split the family wealth into three equal parts. While Angad reminds them that he – just like his Dad – can’t be held to a promise that has never been written down, the emotional temperature begins to rise. But the more Malicka argues for fairness and against the patriarchal Sikh culture, the more her brother veers towards accepting their father’s wishes.

In a parallel to this profoundly observed personal struggle between siblings, which also draws in Angad’s wife Sangeeta, there is a political story. As a junior shadow minister (Environment and Rural Affairs), he is not immediately a contender for the leadership of his party, which is implicitly, judging by the details of the characters’ public school education given in the programme, the Tories. When he decides to run, mobilizing his head of communications Petra and assistant Isaac, he comes against one of the bastions of privilege and power symbolised by his Chief Whip Ralph (rowing captain at Harrow; Merton College, Oxford). 
The result is not only an occasionally sharp satire on politics, with its spads and scandalous leaks, but also a confrontation between a new non-white politician and the old-school white establishment. The clever irony of this is that Angad has also had a privileged education (Harrow; New College, Oxford), and one of the scandals that emerges is that of a public school wanking contest. Nevertheless, the political and racial strand is not only underdeveloped, but its plotting is simply ludicrous, relying more on farce than insight, with a party-conference climax that beggars belief and submerges the piece’s social criticism under a wild tornado of preposterous improbability and forced hilarity.

What makes this rather messy play watchable is Akhtar’s superb acting, which works better in the more emotionally coherent family scenes than in the unconvincing political ones. With his wife and sisters he shows with clarity and precision the confused psychology of the family child under the skin of the grown man, the tension between the need to show that he’s a good guy and the desire to triumph as his strong father’s powerful son. By the end, he’s like a coiled caged beast, prowling the stage, trapped by his upbringing. As an actor, he’s a shapeshifter: sometimes meek, sometimes perplexed, sometimes angry – you never know what he’ll do next. That’s his strength and superpower.

Sahota’s family drama is written with great energy and a compelling sense of well-observed personal dynamics. At its best, the text is emotionally honest and dangerous in its perceptiveness of the human fragility beneath the appearance of charm. As a comedy, there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, and some sheering insights into the migrant experience. But the political strand is disappointingly vague. Like David Hare’s I’m Not Running, there are no mentions of real-life British-Asian Tories, such as Rishi Sunak or Sajid Javid, or any feel for the turbulence of recent years. The passing jokes about Laura Kuenssberg and the BBC seem simply designed to appeal to liberal metropolitans like myself.

As well as this detachment from the reality of Britain today, there is also a cynical side, familiar in current British drama, that suggests the impossibility of behaving honourably. In this perspective, the bad always win, the good are left miserable. The underlying message is that the strong will steamroller the weak – and there’s nothing you can do about it. For all its insistence on telling the right political story, its criticism of hereditary peers, and its comic passages about the nakedness of Gandhi, the play’s ambitions to combine the personal and the political never really succeed. On the other hand, the joy of seeing a performer as versatile and quietly charismatic as Akhtar is a real plus, and the evening is bright with a kind of furious fun which hides most of its shortcomings.

This is emphasised by Daniel Raggett’s spirited production, which is designed by Chloe Lamford as a posh magazine’s feast of monied elegance, and features, along with Akhtar, a rather super cast: Shelley Conn (Malicka) and Thusitha Jayasundera (Gyan) (pictured above) both give excellent performances, deep character studies that complement that of Akhtar. In the political scenes, Helena Wilson is sharp and spiky as Petra, while Humphrey Ker’s Ralph uses his height to tower over Angad and everyone else. Dinita Gohil does her best with the underwritten part of Sangeeta, and Asaf Zohar’s thumping music is lively if not really needed. Never mind, despite its imperfections, this debut shows that Sahota is a name to watch.

• The Estate at the National Theatre until 23 August  
• More theatre reviews on theartsdesk

   @AleksSierz