Chiefly remembered now for the superb 1999 film adaptation starring Om Puri and Linda Bassett, Ayub Khan-Din’s comedy had reached the stage a few years before. His play was, by and large, celebrated for bravely addressing some of the key issues of multiculturalism: interfaith marriage; assimilation; an authoritarian Pakistani father facing down his defiant, British-born children.

Traces of that courage remain in this energetic new production, directed by rising star Sam Yates. He is a director with a keen feeling for atmosphere, while designer Tom Scutt’s set handsomely evokes the redbrick terraces of 1970s Salford, inhabited by chip-shop owner George Khan, his wife, Ella, and six of their seven children.

Less successful is the decision to layer the play’s various locations on to the one set, creating something of a visual jumble. Much of the acting, however, is first-rate: Jane Horrocks is excellent as Ella, by turns ferocious and cowed, and the actors playing the children are utterly convincing. Khan-Din, stepping here into the role of paterfamilias, is less so: his performance feels rather tentative and can’t quite escape the long shadow thrown by Puri’s powerful on-screen presence. With a new generation of British Muslims now coming of age in a very different world, his play also feels rather dated. Where, we can’t help wondering, is the voice of that new generation – and how has the politics of multiculturalism changed?