As Victor in Magic Mike's Last Dance, Ayub Khan-Din makes a long look count. We like that restraint, though it is his sharp, unruly writing for East Is East that gives us most to recommend.
Fi1m perspective
Ayub Khan-Din’s Victor, the butler in Magic Mike's Last Dance (2023), lets a long look do the work. The film keeps interrupting its comedy with explanations, while he supplies the sort of quiet reaction it could use more often. We were bored by the repeated explanations of what dancing means, which made his restraint especially welcome. It is a small pleasure in a film we cannot recommend, but enough to make us wish he had been given more to do.
His early acting work runs from a small part in My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) to the co-lead role of Sammy in Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987). The important turn came with writing in the mid-1990s: his play East Is East (1996) became the 1999 film, with his own screenplay. That family comedy draws on his Anglo-Pakistani background in Salford, giving its arguments a specificity that helps keep them from becoming lectures.
In East Is East (1999), directed by Damien O’Donnell, people can be rude and impatient without stopping to explain what they represent. Khan-Din’s profane dialogue makes the jokes sound like remarks from people who have spent years getting on one another’s nerves. The wrangling over arranged marriages gives the disagreements urgency: these arguments will affect how the children get to live. Om Puri and Linda Bassett give the family enough credibility to survive some rather broad jokes. O’Donnell trusts the ensemble to bring out distinctions that a simple account of clashing cultures would miss.
The handling of domestic violence is less secure, and the film sometimes sends us back to laughter before we are ready. Some jokes make the same point twice, too; the writing is not always as economical as Victor’s look. Khan-Din continued writing with West Is West (2010) and the school drama Ackley Bridge (2017–2022). Those titles extend a career whose acting and writing both give us reasons to pay attention. Start with East Is East for the dialogue and performances, with the warning that the move from cruelty to comedy can be too quick.
Biography
Ayub Khan-Din is a British actor and writer. Born in Salford, he studied drama at Salford College of Technology and trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, graduating in 1984.
His acting credits include the student in My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), Sammy in Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987), Hanif Ruparell in the soap opera Coronation Street (1992–1993), and Victor in Magic Mike's Last Dance (2023). On television he has also appeared in Agatha Christie's Poirot and London Bridge.
As a writer, Khan-Din adapted his Olivier-nominated play East Is East into the 1999 film, which won BAFTA, BIFA and London Film Critics Circle awards. He wrote the sequel West Is West (2010), created the Channel 4 series Ackley Bridge (2017–2022), and his comedy Rafta, Rafta... (2008) won an Olivier Award. He is married to actress Buki Armstrong.
