The Jolly Fisherman at Underbelly George Square – review

There is a precise art to capturing the soul of an East London local, and The Jolly Fisherman pours it out with effortless, razor-sharp grace.

Written by John Dinneen and Alex Urwin (the duo behind Southwark Playhouse’s smash-hit Brixton Calling), this new piece from production company Kick It Anywhere lands at Underbelly George Square with exceptional craft. Set inside a red-brick pub ten minutes north of Barking town centre, the play charts a decade in the lives of boyhood best friends Alan and Amir, tracking their bond across an incredibly turbulent decade.

What could easily have curdled into a heavy-handed polemic on gentrification, pub closures, or shifting demographics instead emerges as something far more delicate. Director Layla Madanat steers the production with slick, conversational precision, ensuring the script side-steps clichéd issue-play tropes. Instead, it deftly weaves themes of young masculinity, belonging, and social displacement directly into the organic fabric of the characters’ lived experiences.

At the heart of the show is a tour-de-force pairing. Alex Hill (Why I Stuck A Flare Up My Arse For England) brings a grounded, vulnerable intensity to Alan, whose entire childhood revolves around the pub’s stools following his mother’s death. You watch him stiffen, like papier-mâché, as the play progresses. Opposite him, Jonny Khan (The S**theads) is magnetic as Amir, a second-generation British-Pakistani lad arriving in the area.

Though their background and circumstances pull them in vastly different directions as the years tick by, the chemistry between Hill and Khan is utterly palpable. Charming, complex, and deeply human, The Jolly Fisherman refuses to offer easy answers about modern England, delivering instead an affectionate, brilliantly performed portrait of enduring friendship – and with it, potentially, hope.

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