IN this season of summer holidays and myriad festivals, it can be easy to overlook theatre shows.

However, the Grand Opera House drew a good first-night audience for East Is East, and it must be hoped that plenty more will take the opportunity to see a touring production of the highest quality.

Jamie Lloyd Productions' revival of Ayub Khan Din's semi-autobiographical play already has enjoyed a West End run and now several cast members from that show have stayed on for the tour, joined most notably by Pauline McLynn, best known for her persistent tea-making role as Mrs Doyle in Father Ted.

Directed by Sam Yates, the production is immediately marked out by the set and costume designs of Tom Scutt, who evokes the cramped, red-brick terraced houses of 1971 Salford, Manchester, with their closets and gates to the street.

As you will most likely recall from Damien O'Donnell's 1999 film version, fish-and-chip owner George Khan (Simon Nagra) is determined to bring up his seven children (six sons, one daughter) as respectable Pakistanis in the Muslim faith, ruling them with a rod of iron so strict that they call him Genghis. However, this is Salford, George has lived here since 1937 and his wife of 25 years' standing, McLynn's long-suffering Ella, is white, Roman Catholic and of Irish stock.

York Press:

Pauline McLynn as Ella Khan in East Is East

His children don't define themselves as Pakistanis, although quiet, devout fourth son Maneer (Darren Kuppan) respects his faith and his father too, even though he beats him. The rest see themselves as British, eating bacon sandwiches behind their father's back and rejecting Pakistani customs of dress, religion and living.

The eldest son has taken flight from the home already; another, Saleem "Picasso" (Assad Zaman) has to lie that he is studying engineering as a cover for his art studies; Tariq (Ashley Kumar) and Abdul (Dharmesh Patel) are being married off to the daughters of the stuck-up Mr and Mrs Shah for the betterment of George's social standing.

The youngest, Sajit (Adam Karim), hides inside the cocoon of his stinking parka, hood up like an igloo, protecting himself from everything but the snip and the teasing of his sister Meenah (Salma Hoque).

Humour abounds, mainly of an earthy nature, like in an early John Godber play or an episode of Shameless, but George is a brooding, threatening father figure and bullying husband, his mood darkened by his obsession with the 1971 war between East and West Pakistan. For all the banter of Auntie Annie (Sally Bankes) and the joshing of the Khan children, George's rigid rule can only lead to heightened tensions in a multi-cultural family, and in his case brutal violence, as his fists fly at Saleem and his wife.

This is discomforting to watch, as it should be, but Nagra gives a tremendous performance as a man struggling with change and McLynn is better still as Ella, who is caught between her feelings as a wife and a mother, who wants to nurture her children's free will.

This magnificent revival of an agitated, restless, rebellious, humorous, belligerent modern classic resonates through the British-Asian years and hits home more than ever.

East Is East, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york