“The Lonely Londoners” at Kiln Theatre
Neil Dowden in North London
20 January 2025
Samuel Selvon’s 1956 novel The Lonely Londoners (published two years after George Lamming’s similarly themed The Emigrants) is one of the first fictional accounts of the Windrush generation’s arrival in the “mother country” after the war. This thrillingly theatrical version, adapted by Roy Williams and directed by Ebenezer Bamgboye, was first seen at Jermyn Street Theatre early last year (when it coincided with Theatre Royal Stratford East’s revival of the ska musical The Big Life which deals with the same subject but with a lighter touch). The show deserves all the plaudits it received originally as it transfers to the bigger Kiln Theatre with its compact energy animating the stage.
Photo credit: Steve Gregson.
The story focuses on four Caribbean men struggling to make a life in London – whose streets turn out not to be paved with gold. The world-weary veteran Moses – who is haunted by the memory of leaving behind the woman he loved – acts as a mentor to newcomers, including a naively upbeat Trinidadian man who has just arrived with only a toothbrush and pyjamas whom he nicknames “Sir Galahad”. Hustler “Big City” is desperately promoting a steel band concert. And the unemployed Lewis has now been joined by his wife and mother who are shocked to find out he is not doing as well as he told them.
In the early scenes there is plenty of humour as the men banter with each other, with Moses acting as peacemaker when arguments start. But the tone darkens as the harsh economic reality of getting a secure job and finding a decent place to live bites, with racism making them second-class citizens (“No Irish, no blacks, no dogs”). They are forced to kill and cook pigeons to fill their stomachs, while their main pleasure is finding sexual release with white prostitutes. And violence rears its ugly head when Galahad pays the price for dating a white woman, Lewis’s jealousy boils over into domestic abuse, and Big City gets involved in a heist. The men have to stick together to survive.
Selvon’s then daring use of West Indian patois in his dialogue lends authenticity to this dramatization. The novel’s impressionistic structure of loosely connected scenes, many of them monologues, has been tightened up in Williams’ skilful adaptation. It may not have a strong narrative through-line but we do accompany the characters on an emotionally charged journey. The men are the main protagonists – though the women also make a strong impact in their smaller roles – both in displays of toxic masculinity and in supportive camaraderie. As Moses says: “We are lonely, yes. But we are not alone.”
Photo credit: Steve Gregson.
Selvon’s book was a forerunner of multicultural London novels such as Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, and especially Andrea Levy’s Small Island (all of which have been successfully adapted for the stage in recent years). Williams – himself of course a major chronicler of the contemporary Black British experience – also dramatized Colin MacInnes’s Absolute Beginners (at Lyric Hammersmith in 2007), which overlaps with The Lonely Londoners in its portrait of young Caribbean immigrants in 1950s West London. But this is a much more satisfying experience in the theatre.
Much credit goes to Bamgboye’s dynamic, partly expressionist direction which stays true to the experimental qualities of the original. And movement director Nevena Stojkov creates powerful physical theatre sequences, especially at the end when the four men support each other as they repeatedly half fall down. The stripped-back set design from Laura Ann Price includes luggage boxes, on which the cast sit upstage when not part of the action, suggesting transience and indeed precarity. The lighting design from Elliot Griggs certainly dazzles (as in bright lights, big city), and turns luridly red during a brutal racist attack, but is occasionally overdone. And Tony Gayle’s sound design features anachronistic music by The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Stone Roses, Blur, and Michael Kiwanuka, so there is disappointingly little sense of the Fifties in the overall staging apart from the clothes worn.
There are superb, committed performances from the seven-strong cast. Solomon Israel (the only new cast member) is impressive as the calmly pragmatic Moses, homesick but determined to forge a new future in the capital. Romario Simpson is heartbreaking as Galahad whose infectious enthusiasm is tainted by hard truths. Tobi Bakare conveys how Lewis’ frustration leads to macho excess. And Gilbert Kyem Jnr’s hapless Big City provides some welcome comic relief with his misnaming of London areas such as “Padding Town” and “Hammer String”. Shannon Hayes’ dignified Agnes and Carol Moses’ feisty Tanty (as wife and mother, respectively) show sisterhood in confronting Lewis, while Aimée Powell’s ghostly Christina in a white dress sings soulfully as Moses’ lost love. Although it’s only January, you are unlikely to see finer ensemble acting on the London stage in 2025.