It’s been a while since I’ve visited Stratford East (The Theatre Royal) and last night was a welcome break to that when I went with a dear friend to see its latest offering, Anita and Me.

I read Meera Syal’s Anita and Me about a decade ago and remember thinking it was simply wonderful. So entertaining and also very educational when it came to cultural differences. It’s loosely based on Meera’s own childhood growing up in the Black Country with Indian parents and I wasn’t surprised one bit to realise that the book is now studied at GCSE level.

Meena, the character based on the author, is a good Indian girl but she wants to fit in with her white neighbours desperately in a 1970’s West Midland’s mining village. She knows who she should be but as she comes of age we have the pleasure of discovering with her the pitfalls of teenage life and how much growing up we all really had to do at the age of thirteen – no matter what colour of our skin or area we lived in.

As the title suggests the plot is set around Meena’s friendship with Anita, the local bad girl and Meena’s neighbour with parents straight from the family Shameless. As her awe for Anita’s popularity start the story, the relationship evolves and we see a softer side to Anita who can relate to Meena in a way she never thought she would. Anita’s feelings of being left out while her parent’s delight in welcoming her baby brother in full Punjabi celebration somehow mirror Anita’s own feelings and they find in each other a crutch. There’s no friendship like a teenage gril friendship and we get to see the highs, the fun and the inevitable crashing down.

This particualr adaptation by Tanika Gupta turns the story into a musical with an original score and some very interesting ways of them being performed. More drama than tinkly musical and the cast performed them brillaintly last night. Mandheep Dhillon’s Meena brought such emotion to her singing that it made me cry twice. Not in it’s beauty but because it told the story so perfectly from the heart.

The entire cast worked together as a team tirelessly to make the whole production utterly believeable. Special note has to be given to Megan McCormick and Yasmin Wilde who both played two characters but who both slipped into each one effortlessly each time a change was made.

Wonderful work, fabulous story and brilliantly performed. Funny, uplifting, heart breaking and informative to boot. A tremendous must see with an ending to have your shoulders, be Punjabi or otherwise, jumping up and down!

I was a guest of the theatre for this performance.

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