Anita and Me, Theatre Royal Stratford East, London E15

Four stars

ADAPTED by Tanika Gupta, Meera Syal’s semi-autobiographical novel Anita and Me makes a welcome stage entrance at the Theatre Royal.

It’s coming-of-age narrative, inspired by Syal’s childhood reminiscences of a small West Midlands mining village, tells the story of the feisty Meena (Mandeep Dhillon). She’s the daughter of recently arrived Punjabi parents who’s seduced by the 1970s pop and youth culture which rubs uncomfortably against her traditional values.

She gangs up with the sassy and charismatic Anita (Jalleh Alizadeh) and, from different perspectives, they share adolescent uncertainties of relationships with boys, their families and the wider community.

Friction inevitably develops as wider cultural conflict and naive sexual competition intervene. Small West Midlands mining villages had largely disappeared by the late ’60s and the warm and cosy assimilation of a Punjabi family into the local community as depicted here was very much the exception.

Syal paints a nostalgic, rosy-hued picture which stretches the limits of credibility and while the play hints at wider contemporary concerns — overt and casual racism, the destruction of community and domestic violence — overall these are submerged in a parodied, overblown and almost Bollywood celebration of working-class solidarity and community cohesion.

Yet there are shades of authenticity. Bob Bailey’s set faithfully recreates two-up, two-down terraced housing with a shared communal space where most of the action takes place.

And the social dominance of women and their role in neighbourly support and resolution of social disputes is resonant of time, place and context.

Less secure are the Brummie accents — there are a multiplicity of these and the production opts for a generic Birmingham cadence rather than one which might be more associated with its Black Country setting.

Under Roxana Silbert’s confident direction, Dhillon’s Meena is an enjoyable portrayal yet her comic characterisation is more evocative of the Beano than the contemporary magazine Jackie referenced throughout.

Alizadeh is gifted the far more nuanced role as the cocky but ultimately insecure Anita and she carries off superbly.

It is the older women however who steal the show, with exceptional performances from Janice Connolly as Mrs Worrell and Yasmin Wilde as Nanima.

There are some very enjoyable and rumbustious musical set pieces which punctuate the action and provide a satisfyingly “feel good” exit for the audience and, so long as you suspend most disbelief, this comes highly recommended.

Runs until November 21, box office: stratfordeast.com

Dennis Poole