This summer, @sohoplace si staging the Death of England trilogy made up of two monologues and a two-hander. Each delves into a character connected to the others by history, love and blood—each fighting for their corner of England while simultaneously questioning what that means. The plays can be viewed individually or together, and for press night, it was a double bill of Michael and Delroy.
Michael could be described as a lad; he swaggers and he’s mouthy with bravado dripping from every pore, but he’s also wounded and conflicted following the sudden death of his father and spews increasingly racist opinions that may or may not be his own.
Thomas Coombes embodies Michael with a desperate likeability, keeping the audience comfortably uncomfortable. He’s funny, yes, and likes some banter, but there’s an underlying feeling that a wrong look could trigger a volcano of pent-up aggression. He’s a tightly wound spring, and this is reflected in the highly physical and often speedy delivery, as if Coombes’s Michael is clinging onto his own narrative before it escapes him.
He switches between memories nimbly, at times literally stepping in and out of them, caressing the props representing key moments in his life: a scene with an England football shirt a sequence of passion, pain and vulnerability.
There are shocking moments here, language that soars but is distressing and raw, with stories of Michael’s dad, Alan, conjuring images of a certain type of working-class, white man, where racism has “a time and a place” to create an England for the English. It becomes clear how Michael has been moulded and shaped by this upbringing, but the repeated rhetoric loses some of its power as the script winds towards its conclusion.
As Michael pays his final respects, holding the urn aloft, Coombes is dripping with sweat from portraying a character who is frenetic, disenfranchised and ultimately exhausted from the depth of his own fury. His identity is absent—a deceased father, an ex-wife and a flower stall that he’s inherited making any success “proxy glory”.
Delroy, however, is a bailiff, a Londoner, a cat owner and a father-to-be. He’s got a mortgage, judgmental mother and ankle tag that keeps beeping. He’s doing his very best not to be a “stereotypical angry black man”, but he has baggage and beef that gets stirred up and amplified thanks to a degrading experience with the long arm of the law.
In this emotional marathon, Paapa Essiedu is spellbinding as a man who faces the sad truth that he’s become a statistic. While Michael mourns his father’s death and complicated legacy, his schoolfriend and best mate Delroy is questioning his own identity as a black British man. Both are shaped by age-old prejudices that have always bubbled under the surface of society but have now been given licence to boil over thanks to years of political and social division.
Clint Dyer and Roy Williams’s carefully crafted script is piercing and distressing but also unashamedly humorous, bringing great depth to Delroy, a character who performs when seen. And Essiedu himself infuses the role with a brazen charm, his audience work a particular highlight that creates connections. When his story unravels and he stands in court, he pleads with the same audience, begging them to join the dots. His Delroy is witty and earnest but embittered and enraged in equal measure. It’s a heartbreaking and powerful mix.
Each play stands alone, but for those who have watched Michael beforehand, Delroy’s story is even more poignant. Knowledge of the rich tapestry of experience their families share pulls certain characterisations into sharp focus and lends the final scene even more emotional impact.
Running at 100 minutes each (without interval), Death of England is a theatrical experience that draws the audience in with a restless energy and unrelenting sense of urgency. Designed by Ultz and Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey, the large cross of St George dominates the playing area, a platform, a cage, a well-trodden path for the feelings of deep-seated frustration. It drips in symbolism, adding a consciously theatrical frame to these state-of-the-nation monologues that are steeped in painful reflections and uneasy truths.