This fourth in Roy Williams and Clint Dyer’s sequence of Death of England plays continues the story of the Fletcher and Tomlin families, but you don’t have to have seen the other plays to enjoy it; it can stand on its own too.
This time, it is brought up to date from the female perspective of Denise Tomlin (born in Dagenham in 1967 of Jamaican parents) and 35-year-old Carly Fletcher, long-time partner of her son, Delroy, and sister of his white best friend, Michael, the men in the other plays. Closing Time isn’t a public house reference; the women are actually closing down the florist shop and West Indian take away they opened with Michael and Delroy, though it could also be read much more widely as the closing down of imperial dreams, the effect of economic pressure on our society, the ending of attitudes.
Denise is a former nurse and a qualified chef; she had put her life savings into their joint venture. Carly’s dad, though a rabid racist, ran a flower shop, so they had the background—what went wrong?
These women have a lot to go on about, from who is to blame for the failure of their business to issues of racism and royalty, and of course Delroy and Michael, who should be helping them but are off watching Leyton Orient play Manchester United.
It is staged, like the earlier plays, on a cruciform platform which is often lit red like England’s St George’s cross, and its scenes range from dialogue to monologues and playing multiple roles in flashback enactments.
The women’s relationship is a mixture of love and resentment: Denise calls Carly (not legally married) her “daughter-in-sin”, but is she really free of her dad’s racism? It is a relationship that could become explosive.
Denise talks of her hopes and ambitions, currently thwarted, and of her frustration that Delroy pours his passion into football more than family. Jo Martin gives her serious stature, but a light touch too, and has a great scene where she watches the King’s coronation, imitating her companions. Like the Windsors, her family also has a mixed-race couple but “unlike the Royal family, it is working.” (And Delroy and Carly just happen to have called their new baby Meghan!)
Hayley Squires’s Carly is volatile and gabby, full of nervous energy, though just a look from Denise can sometimes skewer her. Carly gives graphic account of how she and Delroy first got together, but when drunk on a girls' night out she propounds her “five rules of keeping a black man”, it goes disastrously wrong.
This production, directed by Clint Dyer, concludes a series of plays that honestly explore residual racism even among friends and lovers. They are productions of which the National Theatre can be justly proud.
Since reviewing the production, Jo Martin has been indisposed. The role of Denise is now performed by Sharon Duncan-Brewster.