Strange to be watching the tremendous Death of England monologues last week week. First having begun to glimpse – I think – the country’s rebirth, then, after Southport, seeing its subterranean horrors. Originally seen separately at the National four years ago, the first two parts of Clint Dyer and Roy Williams’s trilogy (the third follows in August) flare on to the stage as dark memories, warnings – and glorious celebrations of acting power.
Less like plays than tumults made flesh, Michael and Delroy would be treasurable as records of the divisions and despair that became glaringly apparent – or more discussed – after Brexit and through the pandemic. Yet they are more than chronicles. These dramatic imaginings of the lives of two young men from Leyton, east London, whose friendship is ringed and threatened by racism – one is black, one white – twist and turn unpredictably: is that racist, flower-selling father quite what he seems? Most important, they are richly expressed: where else would someone hear a pair of eyes rolling behind him?
