{"id":740797,"date":"2026-08-17T12:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T12:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/740797\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T12:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T12:32:11","slug":"the-jolly-fisherman-review-last-orders-for-an-east-london-boozer-in-tense-tale-edinburgh-festival-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/740797\/","title":{"rendered":"The Jolly Fisherman review \u2013 last orders for an east London boozer in tense tale | Edinburgh festival 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two years ago, it was reported that a pub in Barking called The Jolly Fisherman had found a buyer<\/a> after five years of dereliction. The prospective owner was a Muslim charity, which planned to turn a former business based on alcohol into a place of abstinence.<\/p>\n

In one respect, a building that had been the focus of community life in this part of east London for 150 years would continue to be the focus of community life. In another respect, the community had changed.<\/p>\n

To examine what that change might feel like, playwright John Dinneen imagines two school friends, Alan (Alex Hill) and Amir (Jonny Khan). Alan\u2019s father is a fixture in The Jolly Fisherman \u2013 the kind of regular who has his own seat and a nickname for every drinker. Amir\u2019s parents, by contrast, are British-Pakistani immigrants who would never step over the threshold.<\/p>\n

The playwright avoids stereotypes. Yes, there are Brexity opinions among some of the drinkers, but they nonetheless broadly welcome Amir into their fold (he tells his parents he is at a homework club). For his part, Alex takes enough of an interest in Amir\u2019s religion to join him for prayers. The tension comes when economic pressures expose the racism and Islamophobia<\/a> lurking just below the surface \u2013 even for the seemingly open and accepting Alan.<\/p>\n

In Layla Madanat\u2019s lively production, they bounce across a decade and more, from the boom days of beer-garden parties to the isolation of the pandemic and the far-right march and counter protests<\/a> of July 2024. Hill and Khan have the boyish exuberance of natural friends and we pity their falling out, but the play is subtle enough to understand the social importance of gathering places and the threat to community cohesion when they are lost.<\/p>\n

At Underbelly, George Square, Edinburgh<\/a>, until 31 August
All our Edinburgh festival reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two years ago, it was reported that a pub in Barking called The Jolly Fisherman had found a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-740797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}