Auntie Netta and The Trouble With Asian Men

Double bills can be risky in any medium. One act often steals the show from the other, or worst still, both acts can clash completely. This comedy double bill, Auntie Netta and The Trouble With Asian Men, produced by the team behind East is East, is an example of what can happen when two shows are lazily lumped together because of their similar themes.

In Auntie Netta, an eccentric auntie is hoping to seek asylum in the UK, or "the U of the K" as she puts it, and talks at length about her love for her home country and her adopted country. While this half of the show is initially warm and amusing, it quickly falls into repetition and cliché, with the only laughs seeming to come from Auntie Netta’s inability to correctly pronounce certain words. While this may sound funny to some, it does seems like we’re still laughing at foreigners, which is not only old-fashioned, but also woefully out of place in today’s society.

The second show, The Trouble With Asian Men, is less of a comedy piece, and more of a drama, as three actors enact interviews with Asian men and women to reveal what life is like in their homes, families, marriages and social lives today. While it’s easy to see why these two shows have been put together, as they share the same subject matter, the result of this combination is unsatisfying and unimpressive, and brings nothing new to the stage, contemporary culture or the representation of the Asian community in Britain.