Dugsi Dayz at the Royal Court – review

In writer-performer Sabrina Ali’s play Dugsi Dayz, four girls gather for a Saturday detention at their Tooting dugsi (Somali for a school providing lessons in the Qur’an, usually run by a mosque). When their teacher doesn’t turn up to supervise, they’re left to chat, argue, bully, and tell their own updated versions of the Somali morality tales that scared them as children.

A female, British Somali riff on John Hughes’s 1985 teen classic The Breakfast Club, Dugsi Dayz was first performed at East London’s Rich Mix in 2022 and has been performed in Edinburgh, on tour and at the New Diorama Theatre. The play (rightly) doesn’t explain its cultural references for the benefit of non-Muslim/Somali audience members and shows how faith is an intrinsic part of their lives and vocabulary.

The sullen Hani (Hadsan Mohamud) has recently returned after a two-year absence, dogged by rumours of a Year Nine pregnancy and drug-dealing that have been instigated by Munira (Ali), a nasty gossip. Munira’s friend Yasmin (Faduma Issa) is the girly-girl of the group; she wears pink and aspires to TikTok fame, but also has a penchant for using her fists. Completing the quartet, the bespectacled Salma (Susu Ahmed) is the sanctimonious goody-goody who tries too hard to be the teacher’s best friend, though she isn’t above joining in with the rumour-mongering to win favour with the other girls.

Unfortunately, the circular, claustrophobic setup becomes repetitive; the fact-paced bickering has its charm but the writing struggles to gain momentum and the boredom that the characters undergo seeps into the audience’s experience at times due to the scattershot nature of the storytelling. Director Poppy Clifford (with original co-direction by Warda Mohamed) pitches the show at full throttle throughout, which becomes wearing, and there’s a tendency towards overacting. The relentlessness of the banter, in which the jokes don’t always land, means that the characterisation suffers as a result, as does the emotional climax.

Towards the end, each member’s reasons for being in detention are revealed, and Hani’s absence is explained – though a whole play could be written about that experience, it’s rushed through here. While the four conclude that they’ll all be friends from now on, it doesn’t feel likely that they’ll follow through.

This piece has plenty of energy and potential but it needs more structure and development in its storytelling – as it stands, it feels as if it’s just beginning as it comes to the end.