When the twins discover their father has been having an affair with one of their teachers, Samad (Tony Jayawardena) comes up with a particularly cruel way of distracting everyone: Splitting them up and deciding their fate on a coin toss, he sends Magid to Bengal, keeping Millat in London.
Ironically while Magid has been sent to a strict Islamic school he ends up a dispassionate geneticist, while it’s Millat who becomes radicalised by a local group of extremists called K.E.V.I.N, much to the sadness of Irie, who’s desperately in love with him. This is the central thread in a play with multiple meandering, interlocking storylines that regularly come to vibrant life; but all too often Indhu Rubasingham’s production and her lively cast are having to work against the script. Put simply, Sharkey’s adaptation feels like it’s trying way too hard. As if there wasn’t enough going on already, there’s a framing device where, in the present day, Irie’s daughter Rosie is in a coma and is guided through her family’s past by Jamaican bag lady Mad Mary (Michele Austin) to learn her personal history and find out which of the twins is her real father.
As the resident young person from 2018, Amanda Wilkin’s Rosie bears the brunt of some cringe-inducing “modern” dialogue, but everyone has to contend with some cheesy “rewind/fast forward” acting as the action jumps back and forward in time. Englishby’s songs bring mixed results: There’s some lively dance sequences that add to the evening’s relentless energy but also a few songs that feel perfunctory – I didn’t end up entirely convinced that this needed to be a musical at all. And I’ve not read Zadie Smith’s original novel, only seen the TV adaptation – is the title taken quite so literally in the book? Right from the opening scene with Naomi Frederick’s lawyer Ruth in the dentist’s chair (yes, she does the “two thirty” joke,) there seem to be constant, random references to teeth.
For me, the pros and cons end up leaning in favour of the pros; it doesn’t feel like a duff show occasionally lifted by its cast, so much as a generally good show you’re sometimes jolted out of by a hamfisted moment. Karl Queensborough is worth the ticket price alone (then again… when isn’t he?) in multiple roles including a Pakistani lesbian and a sadistic hairdresser, but most of the cast get their standout moment – many in a well-observed comic setpiece of a PTA meeting where all the cultures try not to clash. This is definitely a version of the story that focuses on the lighter side – Samad’s brutal treatment of his family is quickly forgiven and a subplot about a Nazi scientist is very tangential. It’s hard not to think that another writer might have made something more satisfying out of the material, but Rubasingham and her cast elevate this, if not to the nuanced portrait of a multicultural area that it could have been, at least to an entertainingly odd evening.
White Teeth by Stephen Sharkey and Paul Englishby, based on the novel by Zadie Smith, is booking until the 22nd of December at the Kiln Theatre.
Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes including interval.
Photo credit: Mark Douet.
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