★★★★★
It’s so rare to go to the theatre and feel you are part of a living, breathing experience. The vibrancy of meeting characters that you are at once familiar with, yet seem so rarely represented on stage. Emmanuel Akwafo’s evocation of 4 young queer, black guys on a night out has a real richness to it; a mix of humour and the profound, that doesn’t waste a second of its 75 minutes.
Romeo Mika’s Joseph, is newly out, waiting for a bus that never seems to come, with his friends Monday, Omari and Nathaniel. They take the piss out of each other, dance, spill the tea – desperate to keep warm. The gulf between East London and Soho feels like a chasm these guys are desperate to cross, yet feel the anxiety of that oh-so-white twink heavy scene.
The bitchiness turns from friendly to pointed, hitting each other in the trauma. There’s space in the play for each character to speak their truth. Tyler Orphé-Baker’s Omari who reveals how he’s treated as Muslim at work, how he’s feared. Monday is trapped in a prison of masculinity, mocked for being ‘African’. Noah Thomas’s Nathaniel talking about how he isn’t viewed as ‘black enough’. These are vital scenes that sit amongst the queer joy and reverence for Beyoncé. I feel Akwafo distills that feeling of having to be strong all the time, do so much more than others, just to be seen. I can tell that he really cares about these people, and wants them to heal, to be cleansed, which is realised wonderfully.
It’s also great to see an unapologetic neurodivergent character in Joseph, who infodumps and gives this philosophical depth to the play; it never feels contrived.
Nathanael Campbell’s direction, along with Annie Lunnette Deakin-Foster, gives this flow of movement, there’s this energy that courses through the piece; allowing the characters to jump, dance and scale the scaffolding of Amelia Jamne Hankin’s brilliant set. It’s complimented by Jahmiko Marshall’s realistic lighting design. Pierre Flasse’s music and sound brings the noises of London to life, and soundtracks the ensembles dance sequences.
Ultimately, the play’s power lies in that intersection of human experience. Some may take these four characters as some homogenous group, where the varied nature of their experience lays bare our own lack of ability to see beyond one ‘Black British experience’. Akwafo and the company have made something brilliant here, I hope it will tour, and return again and again!
Limp Wrist & The Iron Fist was at Brixton House
