“Driftwood” at Kiln Theatre

Jane Edwardes in North London
★★★☆☆
19 June 2026

Martina Laird is better known as an actor than a playwright, especially for her long-running role as Comfort Jones in Casualty. Twenty years ago, she began writing a play about Trinidad, where she grew up. Set in 1956, on the eve of independence, it captures a moment when British power was waning and American influence rising, forces reflected in the plot of Laird’s impressive, if uneven debut. It was a period of optimism, when many Trinidadians hoped that they could finally govern themselves, free from outside interference.

Martins Imhangbe and Cat White.
Photo credit: Marc Brenner.

Driftwood, the play that emerged, was rejected by several theatres, some saying that they didn’t put on plays that were set in the past. A short-sighted view given the legacy of colonialism that still affects us all today. But the play was entered for the Verity Bargate Award, came second, and the RSC picked it up. Justin Audibert’s production opened in the Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon in April and has now transferred for a short run to the Kiln.

Driftwood is soaked in the sweaty, intense atmosphere of the “gentlemen’s club” Alma in Trinidad’s capital Port of Spain where the time of day makes little impact, and the rum and the banter flow. Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey’s set consists of shuttered windows, a large leather chair, an essential fan, a radiogram, and an African-looking statue made of the driftwood of the title.

The club is run by the hard-working, hard-nosed Pearl (a powerful performance by Ellen Thomas), who is a fanatical follower of Eric Eustace Williams, a politician who is calling for Trinidad’s independence. Although Pearl appears to be in charge, the club and several like it are owned by Roger Ringrose’s Mansion, a pompous Englishman with Falstaffian tendencies who is rather too fond of a literary reference. He is planning to return to Britain, and Pearl is determined that he should pass on the club to her. It has been her home for decades and it is where her daughter Ruby was born. But her pleas appear to fall on deaf ears.

Equally determined to take over the club is the lubricious Ruby, who is very aware of the effect she has on all the men in the play, especially when she leans down to turn the dial on the radiogram, always choosing American music rather than the local calypso.

Laird’s play is full of incident, more than enough for two plays, and it sometimes feels as if it is pulling in two different directions: one about a son in search of his mother; and the other about a criminal activity that goes horribly wrong. Everything changes when Martins Imhangbe’s charismatic Diamond comes into the club and announces that he is Pearl’s son, given away shortly after his birth. For a woman with a suspicious nature, Pearl is very quick to accept this, even if she is not keen to welcome him into the house. But Diamond has felt the lack of a mother throughout his life – we never learn who did bring him up – and he is determined to hang around. There is also a strong attraction between him and Ruby – half-siblings meeting as adults – although neither of them seems to feel that they are flouting a taboo.

All but Pearl are on the take in the play, including the policeman Seldom (Shane David-Joseph). Exploiting her looks, Ruby runs a lively racket of flirting with tourists until Seldom arrives and threatens to arrest them. Unfortunately, Diamond has bigger ideas, going into business with both Mansion and Yankee sailor Tom (Ziggy Heath), and agreeing, without consulting Pearl, to store stolen goods in the back of the club. Caught between the American and the mafia, Diamond is soon out of his depth, losing even Ruby’s support when he calculatedly pushes her into the arms of Tom. It is a flaw in the structure that Pearl is rather too conveniently absent during all these negotiations.

Audibert has assembled a terrific cast in a highly wrought production, even if the musical underscoring by Christella Litras is sometimes heavy-handed. The sparring between Ruby and the various men is full of comic inuendo, which makes the drama between Diamond and Pearl even more heart-breaking. Thomas succeeds against the odds in making Pearl’s rapid softening convincing. Beneath Diamond’s swagger lurks a little boy lost, who is constantly at odds with the world. Family and politics are successfully intertwined in Laird’s impressive and sometimes uncomfortable first play.