For Black Boys Who Have Considered-Royal Ct/Apollo/Garrick

Saw the new cast last night and the show is in great form. It's shorter than it was at the RC too (2hr 10 with a 20 min interval).

Excellent show at today's matinee, the new cast on top form and an engaged audience throughout including a rapturous ovation at the end!

Particular praise for Fela Lufadeju as Jet (a fantastically emotional performance), Albert Magashi as Sable (who had a few moments of ad libbing with the audience which were excellent), and Shakeel Haakim as Pitch (who is being graded and assessed for his work in this show, as he has yet to even graduate! An excellent performance considering!).

Four and a half stars for me.

Extending from 4th May until 1st June.

Puts me in mind of the incredibly short thread length of the Bob Marley musical at the Lyric, considering how long it ran...

We may have a slight diversity issue on this board.

It's had three sold out runs before now, two of which are at significant theatres including a West End run, and is currently on a second successful West End run. People are seeing it, the point is that those people are evidently not on this board for whatever reason. Given the premise of the play, it's an obvious conclusion to reach that this is a rather undiverse space!

I think the response on here to Slave Play's initiative was enough to show there isn't a huge amount of diversity on the forum lol.

I was at this tonight, it was fantastic even from the back of the stalls. A super talented cast that works well together, lots of laughter and appreciation from the audience.

I have heard such good things about this show, I really hope I can get a chance to see it! I will only be able to go if I can get £15 tickets. Is TodayTix the best place for those?

I went to the matinee yesterday. 3* from me - solid performances, especially from the 3 covers who were so all superb - and a few very well written moments - but I found it a confused piece of theatre overall.

I’m not sure what to think to be honest, it’s not really a play is it? Are they supposed to be specific characters in a therapy group - that’s what I’d thought before hand - or are they more just various archetypes presenting unconnected scenes with the common theme of black identity/black experience? I was expecting more exploration of themes around suicide, but that topic is only ever obliquely hinted at and not really ever squarely addressed. I thought it was going to be a lot harder hiring than it is.

The characters can’t really ever be developed that well because it’s unclear if they are the same individuals each time an actor presents a scene, especially with the change of set in the second act. According to the posters outside the theatre each character is named (each name means “black” - jet, onyx, sable etc). But the names were never actually used at any point. There isn’t a clear narrative, and as such little opportunity to build suspense or subvert expectations - there are no expectations because everything is so disjointed - so no clear message is communicated. At least nothing groundbreaking or shocking in any way, for me, it all seems somewhat forced, with very little nuance.

That said the house was full on a weekday matinee and the reception was very warm, although the strongest audience reactions were to the various jokes at black stereotypes, musical references or at one point to an actor bearing his abs. I think
I was just expecting something different, something more substantial or with something more concrete to say? I don’t know. It was brilliant to see a much more diverse audience than usual. Not just in terms of a MUCH higher proportion of black audience members than usual but the audience also skewed younger and more male than I usually notice.

My conclusion is that this just isn’t for me, in the sense that I’m not who the piece is being performed for, rather than it’s not my cup of tea. I hope it’s a commercial success.

Amazing, thank you so much! £20 sounds worth it for this one!

I really enjoyed this, an excellent cast and beautifully put together. There were some school groups in (Thursday matinee) and they were generally very well behaved (a few gasps at the more explicit bits). They clearly loved it and the cast I think really enjoyed having them in.

Saw the matinee today and thought it was excellent. It seems to have been shortened from previous runs (act one is 40 mins, act two about an hour). Found the writing very engaging and relevant and even as a white guy I felt I connected with it. Nice to see a very diverse audience at the theatre today too! Found act one stronger, and curious whether keeping the momentum going and playing straight through might have been the better option for this one.