“Death of England: The Plays” at @sohoplace
Jeremy Malies in the West End
5 August 2024
Death of England: The Plays by Clint Dyer and Roy Williams at @sohoplace brings together the trilogy of Death of England dramas originally staged individually at the National Theatre in 2020 and 2023. I saw the first two (which are monologues) last week and will review Death of England: Closing Time (a two-hander) later this month. These are state-of-the-nation plays with the central issues being ethnic diversity and Brexit. A third theme (and an illustration of the subtle debate) is what the Brexit referendum was not about.
Thomas Coombes as Michael.
Photo credit: Helen Murray.
In the first play, Death of England: Michael, Thomas Coombes plays the title character, an East End florist who is mourning his racist and generally bigoted father (Alan) while also discovering more about him. In the second, Death of England: Delroy (whose original run was cut short by Covid), Paapa Essiedu plays a British-born Jamaican on whom Michael’s sister Carly has a massive crush (or “serious melt” to use Michael’s phrase), who misses the birth of his daughter.
The London terms are chosen with good judgement by the playwrights and while there is a little rhyming slang it is used sparingly. Delroy’s speech is “half cockney, half patois”, this being his description not mine. Linguistically, everything is first-rate with Southend-born Coombes and Walthamstow-raised Essiedu largely using their resting accents. Nothing wanders.
Alan has been football-obsessed, and son Michael is also keen. They represent two generations whose collective memory has been seared by England’s loss in the final of UEFA Euro 2020, but Alan used this as an outlet for racism, focusing on the fact that black players missed their penalties. (“Short on confidence and short on Englishness.”) Any glory will be proxy glory until England teams are predominantly or overwhelmingly Caucasian.
Michael is conspiratorial with us at first. But as he unravels during the funeral, Coombes careers up and down a set by Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey and ULTZ in the form of a Saint George’s Cross. This is raised, and Coombes with some steering no doubt from Dyer (who also directs) uses the pockets of space to vary his movement in an in-the-round staging which is powerful when we become mourners at a funeral and jury at a trial in the second play.
Paapa Essiedu as Delroy.
Photo credit: Helen Murray.
Lighting by Jackie Shemesh often keeps the audience visible so that Essiedu can make the odd flirtatious remark to women for which his ad-libs are quickfire. Shemesh imposes blackouts as Essiedu and Coombes surprise us with lithe unexpected movement. In the second play, Essiedu shows his virtuosity by creating a sustained duologue between himself and the imagined Michael about Brexit in which lighting snaps between different shades as the arguments are batted back and forth.
Recalling his father’s worst moments, Michael quotes a piece of bile directed at perceived English liberalism and tolerance: “Dinghies are our reward!” With shouts of “Stop the boats!” featuring in news broadcasts after the riots this weekend, the play is current. The two pieces are being updated constantly. Delroy (a little unjustly) even accuses Donald Trump of appropriating the Black Power clenched fist salute after the Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt. There are criticisms of Nigel Farage that are becoming more apposite by the day.
It’s a pair of plays that assault all our senses with people making extraordinary affirmations of loyalty to each other. “I love you right down to the smell of your coconut marge/butter!” “In-yer-face” is a lazy phrase but when Essiedu invades the stalls and you see his tears welling up it becomes appropriate. Dyer and Williams are always making brave choices. Delroy has a boxing match which becomes infamous in this quarter of London but it’s Michael who acts it out with the front row smelling the sweat and liniment. The area of London is Leyton and the football club Leyton Orient but none of this is laboured and the plays could easily transfer to the US with few of the references losing their mark.
I was less sure about props. Delroy’s mother Denise (who speaks for herself in the third play) is represented by a sculpted head and Michael’s by a huge, embossed coin of Britannia. Similarly, Michael’s father is presented as being far more reflective, scholarly, and less prejudiced than we thought by the introduction of an Indian character (conjured up by Coombes of course). This struck me as a hasty and broad-brush attempt at depth. And I could not fathom why Michael might be a Remainer. As a florist in central London, he would value free trade and might perhaps sell to tourists, but the detail struck me as being tacked on.
Paapa Essiedu as Delroy.
Photo credit: Helen Murray.
Delroy’s experiences allow him to reflect on the high incidence of stop-and-search experienced by Afro-Caribbean Londoners particularly on public transport as well as levels of poor mental health without clinical intervention, and repeat offending after a prison term stemming from lack of halfway houses and rehabilitation.
Some of the socio-economic debates (as well as references to Greek literature) feel shoehorned in, but Delroy’s grievances are dealt with well in an address to a judge during which Essiedu uses all his skills. He has been arrested unnecessarily on London Overground by white police officers and is both surprised and offended that the desk sergeant is black, dismissing him as a coconut or Oreo. (A gollywog appears beneath the second tier of seats.) Essiedu excels when daring us (I often succumb in these situations) to laugh at good but iffy jokes. “I didn’t think Asian women had it in them to cheat on their husbands!”
The two plays reminded me of another football-infused London monologue involving a dead father, Blue Water and Cold and Fresh by Simon Stephens and Emmanuella Cole. The signature technique here by Dyer and Williams is the actors not just speaking the lines of the other characters they have conjured up but even interrupting them. Not even Alan Bennett has brought the form to that level.
