6 / 10
Roy Williams’s brilliance as a writer lies in the way he delicately coils intimacy into Michael’s soul. As much as boiling hated bubbles, he cannot overcome the love that hangs around his neck like a millstone. Coombes’ happy-go-lucky blokey demeanour delivers the knuckle fisted punches, but not all the blows land.
9 / 10
Essiedu really is a force of nature. Totally at ease, working the audience like a stand-up comic, then, with fox-like agility, backstabbing them with guttural force and working up to a symphonic crescendo. For Michael I noted that Roy Williams’s brilliance as a writer lies in the way he delicately coils loving intimacy into the character’s DNA. Not matter how tempestuous the storm clouds of paranoia and hate are, a ray of light can always shine through. Watching Essiedu find that light is breath taking.
Read the reviews for Death of England: Michael, Death of England: Delroy and Death of England: Closing Time. See what the critics are saying and learn more about the shows.
The guns fire loud and sonorous for the opening salvos of Clint Dyer and Roy Williams’s Death of England trilogy. A staggered premiere over four years at The National Theatre from 2020, new kid on the theatreland block @sohoplace (it’s really called that) have collated the trilogy (Michael, Delroy, and Closing Time) in rep in the West End.
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