Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog

I love the Royal Court Mondays, where you can take a punt on some live theatre you wouldn’t otherwise book, for the price of a cinema ticket. Sometimes you’re disappointed, others thrilled, and all points in-between. Danny Lee Wynter’s debut play is a brilliantly staged and excellently performed piece that proves to be a chance well worth taking.

David is approaching forty, living with his sister Syd and her boyfriend, making his living as an actor by participating in her children’s entertainment business. His social life sees him at gay clubs with other black actors, most more successful than him, notably King, an American, star of a black superhero franchise. King is in an open relationship with his husband Steven, a white travel writer. David succumbs to King’s advances and even ends up accompanying him on a press tour to Australia to promote the latest film in the series. Though he appears to tire of the superficiality, promiscuity and obsession with sex in King’s world, he returns to his dark past of drink and drugs. During this time Syd becomes pregnant, he lets her down by going AWOL, and we learn more about their family background.

In another world again, we enter the black hero fantasies of King’s film character Craw in deftly executed scenes that seem to emerge from reality or run in parallel with it. The play moves between the three worlds seamlessly, packed full of great dialogue, very explicit and often extremely funny. There are lots of themes around identity and representation, but I didn’t feel they quite came together to create a cohesive narrative / message. That said, it’s a very audacious and impressive playwriting debut, which gets a brilliant production from Daniel Evans, with designs by Joanna Scotcher (set) Kinettia Isidore (costumes) & Ryan Day (lighting), which most debutants could only dream of. Wynter himself takes the lead role at the head of an exceptional cost in which Rochenda Sandall stands out as sister Syd.

It’s great to welcome a new playwright with such promise, who seems to have learnt his craft as much from being in the audience as performing on the stage.