Snookered

Synopsis

On the sixth anniversary of T’s death, his four friends meet as they always do for a game of snooker and a night to celebrate T’s life. As they excavate the past and measure their own lives against T’s, secrets are revealed and allegiances shift as quickly as the drinks are downed. Can they put to rest the guilt they feel over T’s untimely death? And will their friendship survive the final betrayal? In a volatile political climate, Ishy Din opens a timely window into a strand of British Muslim life that often remains unseen. Through sparky dialogue, Snookered probes into the lives of these young men and their fragile masculinity, burdened by cultural expectations yet charged with personal dreams.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 1 March 2012

Four young Asian Muslim men gather in the corner of a snooker hall around a pool table somewhere in or around Oldham, or Burnley perhaps, to mark the anniversary of the death of one of their friends.

There’s motormouth Shaf (Muzz Khan), an “orange giraffe” in his tangerine jacket, who’s a taxi driver with five kids; impressionable Kamy (Asif Khan) clutching a snooker cue that he’s been told belonged to Stephen Hendry, the world champion; and Billy (Jaz Deol) who’s returned home from down South in Forest Gate.

Later, they are joined by the more conventional Mo (Peter Singh), who sports braces and works as an assistant manager in a branch of Comet.

Their banter, rivalries and dreams of self-improvement are discharged over 95 minutes of heavy drinking – pints and shots of whisky and tequila – and a series of pool games, while a virtually silent white bar-tender (Michael Luxton) lurks in the shadows.

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Latest User Review

Iqbal Malik - 6 March 2012:

The play is okay but a lie. Muslim men do not hang around pool halls getting drunk. I have been to the so-called 'Asian pool halls' in Bradford and Manchester and there are certainly many groups of young Muslim men playing pool. But they do not drink alcohol. They smoke drugs but never drink (in the main). So this really would be a bunch of Punjabi (probably Sikh men) in this scenario. The play seems to be a feeble attempt to spread a lie, "Muslim men drink pints and hnag around pubs just like most English people. No, this is a lie and the play is spreading a lie. I now live in the East end of London and, 'Oh my God, you will never see young or older Muslim men in these scenarios....

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