In Her Eyes, I’m a Good Man, written and directed by Mo Korede, is part of Theatre Peckham’s Young, Gifted & Black 2026 season. True to the programme’s mission, this play is not just about love in its many forms, from friendship to romance, but is also a love letter itself to the vibrancy and richness of Black British life.
Imbued with music from across the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, Korede illustrates how relationships are shaped by our community, both the people in it and the cultural expectations that dictate it. At the play’s centre are two childhood best friends, Kay (Victoria Nwaesei) and Jay (Seyi Falas), who have been each other’s rocks since they were young. The chemistry between Nwaesei and Falas is palpable, and they expertly execute the agonising intensity and intimacy of their characters’ emotions as they navigate their dating lives with other people. While the two characters might not necessarily see each other as soulmates, the body language they speak, the shared banter they have, the looks they give to each other, suggest otherwise.
This will-they-won’t-they plot relies on fairly predictable obstacles, such as meddling exes and tortuous instances of bad communication. What keeps the show dynamic is its high-octane sound design. DJs RUSH:HOUR and Bridget Ekelectic deliver an immersive, hypersonic soundscape that transforms the stage into various propulsive scenes of Black party culture, such as a Nigerian club during Detty December and Carnival in the sultry heat of London summer – it’s impossible to not feel yourself bopping to each song that’s played and the audience is even invited on stage at points to join the party. Mo Bangura and Zainab Lawal, who form the play’s ensemble and act as the “curators of vibes”, also lift the play, shapeshifting continuously into a range of side characters around the main couple and injecting plenty of comedy. Together, the four performers create an almost sacred atmosphere of joy that keeps the audience gripped throughout. While at times this energy drowns out the plot and blunts its more poignant moments, it also speaks to the worlds around us that shape who we are.
An unexpected highlight of the night was a short extract from Assistant Director Effie Ansah’s own play, which Imagiphoria Productions, the company behind In Her Eyes, I’m a Good Man, has committed to staging alongside two other works from the creative team. The few minutes we saw were tightly crafted and beautifully performed, and I’m very excited to see the full production. Overall, this commitment to platforming the varied stories of, and voices within, the Black British community is vital and exemplary.
In Her Eyes, I’m a Good Man Rehearsal Photo (Credit: Tanasha Chege)
Cast & Crew
Mo Korede – Writer/Director Effie Ansah – Assistant Director Mya Onwugbonu – Producer Imagiphoria Productions – Production Company Shane Afolabi – Executive Producer Bashiie Baptiste – Project Manager Yemurai Zvaraya – Movement Director Arianna Muñoz – Sound Designer RUSH:HOUR – DJ Composer Bridget Ekelectic – DJ Composer Jahmiko Marshall – Lighting Designer Phyllys Egharevba – Set/Costume Designer Janhavi Shivalkar – Stage Manager Tanasha Chege – Rehearsal and Production Photographer Lynelle Kisuule – Marketing Manager Seyi Falas – JAY Victoria Nwaesei – KAY Mo Bangura – ENSEMBLE Zainab Lawal – ENSEMBLE
Love in Lagos – An African Reimagination of Romeo & Juliet
With Love in Lagos, M54 Studios brings the spirit of Nigerian pageantry to the heart of South East London. Romeo and Juliet has been adapted, retold and revived more times than anyone could count, yet this production finds a new dimension within the text, reshaping it into something between pantomime, historical tragedy and folktale.
Mention Romeo and Juliet to anyone and they will no doubt point to the familiar themes: star-crossed lovers, feuding families, inevitability of fate. Director Mofe Duncan transplants these well-trodden throughlines to 1960s Nigeria, specifically the first of October, the day when the country cast off British colonial rule, marking the dawn of newfound independence.
While the play broadly follows Shakespeare’s structure, it is never derivative, nor afraid to depart radically from the canonical text. The feuding houses are two powerful bloodlines – the Yoruba Adeyemis and the Igbo Okonkwos – vying for a federal constituency seat in Lagos. As with the original play, a son and daughter of these rival families meet and fall for one another before learning each other’s surnames. By the time this truth emerges, it is too late for them to simply untangle themselves from each other’s lives as lovers and they both are wracked with the gravity of this reality. Should their families discover their affair, it would unleash a war that could tear through Lagos. You might expect a version set in this period to belabour the political significance of colonialism and independence but this production chooses to not to make it the defining focal point; instead, the weight of family lineage is explored in great depth. Unlike the Montagues and Capulets, the feud in Love in Lagos carries deeper weight, intensified by tribal division and the high stakes that come with trying to claim a voice in a newborn democracy.
Some may see this refusal to linger in the broader postcolonial context as a missed opportunity, but the direction the play takes instead is just as effective and compelling.
Unlike in Shakespeare’s original, the audience is invited to throw itself wholeheartedly into the action, becoming something like a chorus. Even the band is drawn into the action, reacting to events on stage. At one point a soulful saxophone rendition of ‘My Heart Will Go On’ is drowned out by the audience’s enthusiastic karaoke. The tone throughout the production is resolutely comic, at times verging on satire, as with Chidi, the weaselly cousin of Emeka (i.e. Romeo), played by Ola Makanjuola. For example, in a scene when Emeka confides in his aunt (Princess Adekoya) about his forbidden love, we spot Chidi lurking in the corner, eavesdropping like a classic pantomime trope. This willingness to infuse the play with levity, and to freely reshape its contours and characters, makes for a richer, more folk-operatic experience. With ceremonial drumming and praise poetry expertly performed by the onstage band, this is a production catered expressly towards Nigerian audiences and unashamedly celebrates the tradition of Nigerian art and theatre without feeling beholden to its Western source.
I have a deep appreciation for productions that refuse to be hamstrung by pedantic fidelity to the canon; every retelling should brim with as much joy as this one. That joy more than compensates for the technical mishaps, the rough-around-the-edges feel, and a running time that stretched well beyond what was advertised. There is no stuffiness or frigid politeness here.
Through every technical hiccup, the cast remain committed and true to their characters. Bisola Aiyeola as Kitan (Juliet) and Uzor Arukwe as Emeka (Romeo) capture the smouldering intensity of forbidden love perfectly, with Aiyeola in particular never shy to turn her piercing gaze on the audience, as if letting us in on the secret. Together they hold the balance between comedy and the very real stakes of their situation. Their love is never depicted as rash or reckless. Rather, we feel deeply the burden it places on their shoulders and their hearts. By the time they have their first kiss, we are utterly sold on the romance, dreading what we assume will be their inevitable deaths (which, mercifully, do not unfold in the exact same way as Shakespeare originally plotted). For all the comedy imbued in this show, none of the performances tip into excess. Special mention goes to Adekoya and Oluwaseyi Classic as Kayode, Emeka’s fantastically flamboyant best friend, both of whom master that comic register and keep us captivated throughout.
Gateway House in Woolwich may have been a trek to get to for most of the audience, but it proved to be a fitting home in which to watch this show. The company, which previously toured this show in Manchester and Coventry, makes excellent use of the church hall, and though the play itself might be largely free of Christian themes, the space itself fosters a sense of community spirit: church, after all, draws people together much as theatre does.
This year, I’ve had the pleasure of expanding my theatre horizons – from watching a show on Broadway to my first trip to Edinburgh Fringe Festival. My top shows of 2024 all toy with the norms of storytelling in innovative ways – experimenting with their narratives, playing with the limits of their forms, instilling freshness in the theatre-going experience. They have all stayed with me long after I saw them.
The Picture of Dorian Grey, Theatre Royal Haymarket
The Picture of Dorian Gray Production Photo (Credit: Marc Brenner)
Following the success of Succession, Sarah Snook can be seen playing 26 characters in Kip Williams’s adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s cautionary tale. Undergoing several transformations onstage (as well as moving screens with pre-recorded snippets in which she plays certain characters), Snook shows us the full spectrum of London society in the late 1800s. Williams, along with Marg Horwell who helms the scenic and costume design, Nick Shleiper overseeing lighting and David Bergman the video design, builds an incredible ecosystem through which Snook can shine in this one-person show. This play operates at a constant high-speed, purposefully designed to feel like it’s on the edge of careening – but never actually going off the rails. In many ways, this is a cabaret show – rambunctious, subversive, and a ton of fun.
Is Dat U Yh, Brixton House
Is Dat U Yh Production Photo (Credit: Ali Wright)
In his review for Medium, Jacob Antigha describes this as a ‘love letter to the naughties, South London, and Black-British culture’ – a succinct encapsulation on what this play offers its audience. Director and writer dkfash shows us what it is like being a young black girl growing up in South London, through the characters, collectively known as the “Back of the Bus Queens”. And even though that specific part of London isn’t where I grew up, the girls’ shared memories ring true in many ways. Set to a soundtrack of throwback hits, fashioned by Xana, this is deeply nostalgic. The cast, Adeola Yemitan, Antonia Layiwola, Zakiyyah Dean, and Rachael Ridley, are nimble and infectious with their energy. More than theatre, this is poetry that takes its audience on a trip down memory lane.
Death of England: Delroy, Soho Place
Death of England: Delroy Production Photo (Credit: Helen Murray)
Last year, I had The Effect on last year’s list of my top shows. This year, I’m featuring yet another play that stars Paapa Essiedu. This time, it’s the Delroy installment in the Death of England Trilogy. The stage is Essiedu’s – over the course of the play, he captivates as the tragic hero, Delroy, a Black man whose unwavering love for a white girl finds him caught in the crosswires of her racist family. On top of this, he is also subject to harrowing police brutality. However, the writers, Clint Dyer (who also directs) and Roy Williams, take pains to remind us that, despite the clear-cut racism he endures, Delroy isn’t a saint. Rather, they imbue this character with incredible depth and fallibility. The staging, designed by Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey and ULTZ, is simple but multifunctional, which allows for Esseidu to show us just how trapped he is, physically (with his ankle monitor) but mentally. Despite this, Essiedu expertly transcends the confines of the stage by putting on full display the pathos and humanity at the root of this man’s story. This is unabashedly my favorite monologue from the state-of-the-nation trilogy.
Among the 30-odd plays I watched in 2023 (sadly less than I watched last year) were some which left such lasting impressions on me I have no choice but to highlight them in an end-of-year round-up.
Sound of the Underground, Royal Court Theatre
Sound of the Underground Production Photo (Credit: Helen Murray)
Performer and theatre-maker Travis Alabanza created two pieces of art which have both made my list – Sound of the Underground at the Royal Court Theatre being the first that I watched. In this electrifying and explosive play, Alabanza and co-creator and director Debbie Hannan spotlights London’s underground queer clubbing scene, which has at its epicentre, transgressive art and (often poorly paid) artists. We’re treated to an evening of drag, cabaret, and burlesque as the ensemble (CHIYO, Lilly SnatchDragon, Ms Sharon Le Grand, Sadie Sinner The Songbird, Rhys’ Pieces, Sue Gives A F*ck, Midgitte Bardot, and Wet Mess) perform with equal measures of joy and vulnerability. All this explodes out of the initial plotline in which they conspire to kidnap RuPaul, whose popular franchise ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ has resulted in the commercialisation of their beloved fringe artform. These legendary drag queens and creatives, under Alabanza’s and Hannan’s tutelage, craft a play that defies categorisation, balancing the desire to give the audience the night out that we paid for while reckoning with how much of their artistic expression is threatened when it becomes ‘labour’. An exhilarating metatextual play which draws parallels to Alabanza’s Burgerz…
Burgerz, Southbank Centre
Burgerz Photo (Credit: Elise Rose)
A show that I wouldn’t, as with Sound of the Underground, classify as simply ‘theatre’. Alabanza and their creative team have again resisted any one traditional method of storytelling, instead offering us – in the form of a cooking and stand-up comedy show – a mirror into which we must look and interrogate our own societal presumptions and prejudices. If anything, Burgerz is an immersive exhibition on identity, transphobia, and on the audience themselves. Directed by Sam Curtis Lindsay, this production begins with Alabanza inviting a cis, white, straight man to volunteer to read aloud instructions on how to cook a burger for Alabanza on stage. We learn about this audience member’s relationship to his identity and to identity politics at large. As Alabanza continues to cook the burger, we get to a moment – a formative one for them and for us – when they recount being the victim of a hate crime; someone threw a burger at them for simply walking down the street as a trans person. With this memory, Alabanza invites us to question the many times in our lives we’ve been a bystander, watched violence enacted with a silence tantamount to complicity, all because it’s easier than speaking up. I hope to see more of Alabanza’s necessary and cathartic explorations about nonconformity and survival in the new year and beyond.
The Swell, Orange Tree Theatre
The Swell Production Photo (Credit: Ali Wright)
Shortlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize for Playwriting, Isley Lynn’s non-linear play about three lesbians – fiances Annie and Bel, and Annie’s childhood friend, Flo – is animated by a nimble cast: Jessica Clark, Ruby Crepin-Glyne, Viss Elliot Safavi, Saroja-Lily Ratnavel, Shuna Snow and Sophie Ward. With Annie’s unexpected arrival in their lives, the soon-to-be-weds’ bliss quickly becomes exposed as a kind of naivety and gives way to darker revelations and confessions. This ensemble, each of whom are either playing the young or old versions of Annie, Bel, and Flo, is a powerhouse who adds a lived texture to Lynn’s poetic narrative. The Swell is principally a love-triangle, a web of competing passions which entangles all three women over several decades. Never confusing or alienating, Hannah Hauer-King’s production keeps us suspended in a perpetual uncertainty, much as each relationship hangs precariously in the balance. The haunting inevitability of this story is given extra weight as the cast turn into a kind of Greek chorus whenever they’re not actively on stage. The tragedy culminates with a twist that is delivered effortlessly on a stage that resembles a boxing ring the more and more things become combative. Each audience member may have their favourites in a uniformly great cast – and while I was particularly drawn to Clark’s performance, the real testament is this original piece of writing which allows for all pillars of theatre making – from the direction and staging to the sound design – to come together in a spell-binding exploration of queer desire and betrayal.
The Effect, National Theatre
The Effect Production Photos (Credit: Marc Brenner)
Verbal volleying, sharp soliloquies, incisive retorts – Lucy Prebble’s dialogue in The Effect remains as idiosyncratic as it did in 2012, and yet, with the popularity of HBO’s Succession, for which Prebble writes, it also feels oddly familiar. With no real specificity of period and location, and yet gesturing to a grey-and-blue tinged, mist-filled dystopian future, Jamie Lloyd’s revival for the National Theatre feels as stripped back as possible, with the focus solidly on the psychologies of its two principal characters, Tristan (Paapa Essiedu) and Connie (Taylor Russell). These two could not be more different and yet have found their paths converge at this clinical trial for an experimental antidepressant. During the trial, the two patients fall in love which is a side-effect of the drug – but the dynamics keep shifting between them as they debate who’s been administered the placebo and whose feelings are chemically-induced. Essiedu and Russell deliver great performances in this play of two halves – on the other side of the traverse staging unspools the layered relationship between the experiment’s two doctors, played by Michele Austin and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. Admittedly, I cannot say what in the plot has been updated eleven years on but there’s something timelessly mesmerising about Austin’s character as she considers life as a Black woman who has experienced depression, the necessity of antidepressants in a society that nurtures mental instability, feeling like a piece in a larger machine that churns and churns and churns – and what to do with all of this self-awareness. I came away wishing that I could have been given more insight into her character but the sparseness of this play – the questions it throws out and chooses not to dwell on – allows for the audience to fill in the gaps with their own realities. This makes for a borderline uncomfortable viewing experience as we have no choice but to grapple with the complexities of our lives much like the play’s cast. And so, the ensemble’s thoughts, feelings, and darkest secrets are offered to us like we are the psychologists for the play itself, making prognoses and drawing our own conclusions while fighting the impulse to become too entangled.
FLIP!, Soho Theatre
FLIP! Production Photo (Credit: Tristram Kenton)
Racheal Ofori’s satire about friendship, social media, and cancel culture is directed by Emily Aboud at breakneck speed and yet never loses sight of its main targets – bedfellows capitalism and fame, and the lengths we must go to remain afloat in a disposable world. With sprightly physical comedy, Leah St Luce and Jadesola Odunjo play content-creating duo Carleen and Crystal. They end up selling out to a new social media platform, FLIP!, and coin a bite-sized and easily-remixable reaction meme – “collect the cheque”. St Luce and Odunjo intermittently act out some of this viral hit among others, which are genuinely funny and highlight both actors’ magnetic personalities. This production is kept lean with St Luce and Odunjo also multi-rolling the voices of their adoring followers and fiercest critics as their characters enter down a Machievallean pursuit for money and views. A morality lesson of sorts, we’re shown how the two women learn very different lessons from the consequences of their actions. With its Tik-Tok-esque dances, musical intervals, and vibrant lighting, this play is emboldened by the very thing it is critiquing – an insightful meta-commentary on how to keep the attention of modern audiences who now lose interest after six seconds. Ofori also explores the ramifications of AI and complicated race relations in a digital age. And yet, as dark as the two characters’ stories become, we never feel the burden of the themes and ideas being thrown out at us.
