After Sunday at the Bush Theatre review: this sensitive debut doesn’t entirely deliver on its promise

Multiple emotional crises erupt when a female therapist forms a cookery group with three male inmates of a secure unit in this empathetic but uneven debut play by Sophia Griffin. The writer feels her way convincingly into the mix of bravado and vulnerability of male characters – all, like the therapist Naomi, of Caribbean heritage - both yearning for and afraid of the world outside. And there’s a real warmth between them and the woman they bashfully refer to as “miss”.

But the narrative is a mixture of the obvious and the elusive, and overall fine acting in Corey Campbell’s production - originally seen at Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre, where he is artistic director - sometimes veers towards the overemphatic. We get only sketchy backstories of the men and the events that got them locked up, and just a hint of Naomi’s complicated home life, by eavesdropping on her phone conversations. It’s a serious but skimpy look at an underreported issue: black men are four times more likely to be sectioned than white men, according to the charity Mind.