It starts and ends with a coconut – a symbol of giving oneself entirely.

A coconut, and a tiny corner shop, which Good Teeth have designed to open up entirely, yes both the shop and the coconut open to start the show. The corner shop is the perfect place to set this show, the corner shop is the central pillar of many communities and often where many of the punjabi-sikh families would have began their lives when first arriving in England. Music is cleverly used to set the period in both the pre show and the interval, marking the passing of time from the early 1970’s up to a more modern day U.K. The first half is set entirely in the past making it easy to track the passing of time and there’s no confusion to the audience.

As a “Gora” watching this show (I now know what that is thanks to the Glossary in the programme) it could sometimes be a bit tricky to understand the joke, or the meaning of what was being said on stage. But as a “Gora” passing through one of these corner shops in Wolverhampton I may have indeed missed things being said to me. Although I struggled with some of the phrases the general gist was not lost on me, and it was lovely to hear different sections of the audience laughing at totally different things.

Marriage Material is based on the novel by Sathnam Sanghera, which intern is loosely based on the 1903 novel “The Old Wives” by Arnold Bennett, and beautifully bought to life on the stage by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti and directed by Iqbal Khan. It shows the struggles of the pujabi-sikh community trying to fit in to the UK in the 1970’s and, how even within families, marriage is going to mean something totally different. We follow the two sisters of the Baines family as they grow up and find love in very different ways. The show touches on arranged marriage, but the girls both end up choosing their own path, one staying in Wolverhampton and taking on the family business. The other running away to London. The struggles this causes the parents, and the other members of the community is wonderfully bought to the stage by this talented bunch of actors. Although there are only eight of them, it feels like many more, and the stage never feels empty. They cast bring humour to this play, and at points it felt like I was back watching a comedy sketch from the likes of Meera Syal and Kulvinder Ghir. Special mentions from me go to Kiran Linda, Avita Jay and Ifran Shamji who are all superb character actors.

The show deals with death, love, marriage and everything in-between, not being afraid to bring humour to the dark, but also take a solum moment when needed. Bringing death to the focus of the play, as well as love, and the difficulties the young punjabi teenagers had in admitting who they loved, both in the 70’s and today. The feeling they have to please their parents and not love who they actually fall in love with. There is even a sub story about the battles Sikh men had within the work place in the UK to wear their turban, this cleverly breaks up the storyline and gives us more to think about other than marriage.

The end is both poignant and a fantastic celebration of love, beautifully lit by Simeon Miller. The use of marigolds at the end, and though-out the theatre is gorgeous, placing divine blessings on the couple but also, brings the colour associated with many Sikh festivals to the stage. For anyone who’s experienced the marigolds at a celebrations like this it really is a strong memory, and you can’t help but smile when you see those colours. It’s so nice to see a proper West Midlands story of the stage at the REP, representing so many people from our amazing multicultural county. This is a love story to all the Punjabi families (and indeed many other immigrant families) that struggled with fitting in and finding love, but this isn’t a story just for them, this story touches everyone. This is a show to be proud of and for all West Midlanders to enjoy.