Khandan

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 cliché, but here you can see that it is likely to provide rich material for many years to come." –Birmingham Post