Expendable at the Royal Court Theatre – review

If you were of news-reading age in the 2010s, you’ll remember the sickening discovery of child-grooming rings in the North of England.

Many of the criminals were men of Pakistani heritage, and Emteaz Hussain’s play — fictional but inspired by the stories of survivors and workers — explores the wrecking-ball consequences of the abuse through the prism of one British-Pakistani family.

It’s 2011 and Zara’s 20-year-old son Raheel has been wrongly accused of being part of a grooming ring, his face plastered across the papers. Friends are abandoning the family, dog faeces appear on the doorstep, EDL protests rage, and Islamophobes have just kicked an elderly man to death. Jade, a survivor of the actual groomers, wants to defend Raheel but is being blocked by Zara, who is paralysed with shame over something I won’t spoil.

Marching into the crisis comes Zara’s estranged big sister Yasmin who to quote Jade, “got pregnant to a rasta ‘n’ had to leave the area.” She is a feminist force of nature, desperate to reconnect with her sister, release her from her shame, and whisk the family to the safety of her own home in Manchester. Zara’s daughter Sofia, meanwhile, is neglecting her A-levels in favour of a new Muslim activist group set up by a polarising uncle.

If this feels like a lot to unpack, we’re just getting started. As the play unfolds, everything from the authorities’ failure to stop the abusers, and the stifling of Pakistani women’s voices, to racism in the media and police, play out in the family’s struggles and clashing views.

Add to all of that a slow drip-feeding of key plot points and the play feels, at times, overwhelming and confusing. Themes and backstories dangle, unresolved, when the lights go down.

The play is more successful, though, when it focuses on the family’s relationships, particularly that sometimes baffling love that endures between sisters, however many years have passed and however threadbare the bonds.

Under Esther Richardson’s precise direction, Avita Jay and Lena Kaur as Zara and Yasmin are all sisterly shorthand and deep understanding – bickering and pushing and loving each other almost involuntarily.

Gurjeet Singh captures the bewilderment and rage of a young man accused, albeit with some oddly slow movement thrown in. And Humera Syed is winning and worrying as the passionate but impressionable Sofia. Maya Bartley O’Dea rounds out the cast as Jade, a young woman fighting to do the right thing, despite her own wounds.

A mention must be made, too, of Natasha Jenkins’ set. Zara’s kitchen-diner is strewn with the paraphernalia of family life, an instantly relatable reminder of the many families whose lives were shattered by abusers. Its cosiness becomes all the more heartbreaking when we learn everything it is sheltering the family from.

Despite the play’s sometimes overstuffed plot, one burning question rises above the fray: should women’s voices be heard, even if what they say will be weaponised against the men in their community? And that question is answered unequivocally.