Death of England: Delroy in the West End – review

Paapa Essiedu could easily make it as a stand-up, on the evidence of his breathless performance of Clint Dyer and Roy Williams’ Delroy, the second in their Death of England series that is being revived at @sohoplace.

Delroy, whose childhood friend Michael is the subject of the first play, here has right of reply as he reflects on his work as a bailiff, his impending fatherhood (with Michael’s sister, Carly), and why he voted for Brexit. The story pivots around his attempt to make it to the hospital in time for the birth, only to be thwarted by being arrested for, essentially, being a Black man in a hurry.

Essiedu superbly patters with the audience. He challenges us to respond to him, and castigates us for our lack of energy. He even asks us directly if we saw the first play, Michael. So there goes my argument that you can easily watch any of this Death of England trilogy in isolation (but, whisper it, you can).

The picture painted is slightly more nuanced than its predecessor. Delroy is wearing an ankle tag, a vest and a durag. His outfit belies his status as a bailiff, which he’s eager to point out is a job he only does for the money. He’s a cynic – targets for his wrath range from Palestine sympathisers who work for the BBC to Trump’s recent repurposing of the Black power symbol. At one stage, a golliwog doll is used to represent a Black policeman.

But as the play develops, we see the man beneath the posturing. His relationship with Carly, painted by Michael as one purely based on lust, is clearly much more, and the climactic scenes where he reconciles with her and meets his new daughter are deeply affecting. There’s a telling moment of realisation when he notices the baby’s mouth resembles that of his racist late father-in-law Alan – “he’s living on, through me”.

Delroy and Michael may have drifted, but the two are inextricably linked, and a scene where they confront each other at the hospital is brilliantly done, as Delroy tells him he voted for Brexit to make Britain the “n*gger of the world”. There’s venom but there’s brotherhood too; one longs to be a fly on the wall at their first all-family Christmas.

Astutely directed by Dyer on Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey and Ultz’s George cross-shaped stage (which literally gets torn apart, in a moment of peak visual metaphor), Essiedu gives nothing short of a tour de force performance. He demands our focus and our judgment, literally turning us into his jury. Like Michael, he seems to be searching for validation but isn’t entirely sure what for.

Death of England: Michael and Delroy will soon be joined by Closing Time, a duologue between Carly and Delroy’s mother, here tellingly represented by the statue of Nefertiti. The trilogy is one of the finest state of the nation series of the century so far. The first two parts brilliantly capture the sense of a country wrestling with an existential crisis, and an underlying search for belonging in the world. Catch them (any of them, but ideally all of them), while you can.

You can read the review of Death of England: Michael here.