G ★★★★ Royal Court Theatre | Aug 22 - Sep 21, 2024


Three black teenagers deal with adolescent anxieties and aspirations in Tife Kusoro's gothic coming-of-age story. Kai is the practical, entrepreneurial head boy. Khaleem is the romantic, spiritual dreamer, and Joy is dealing with her gender and sexual identity. They each represent an aspect of the challenge faced by young people on the brink of entering adulthood, and all of this is overlaid with the pressures brought to bear by societal expectations and prejudices, the CCTV camera scrutiny that is ever ready to judge and misconstrue their behaviour. As they grapple with these internal and external quandaries, they run afoul of the uneasy spirit of Baitface, a teenager who was falsely accused of a crime and who apparently haunts those who mess with his mystical trainers. By crossing Baitface, the trio then find themselves also implicated in a criminal activity, which is probably the attempt to be themselves in a society which is prescriptive about their identity. They are then threatened with losing the very things that make them the individuals they are. Kusoro's play is almost a spooky, streetwise take on such classics as Stand By Me, but its story sometimes seems unnecessarily contorted and obscured in the presentation. The characters are engagingly believable and their language has a humorous and colourful authenticity, but the narrative development often seems rather unnecessarily arty. Selorm Adonu, Ebenezer Gyau and Kadiesha Belgrave all manage the difficult task of believably playing youth on the cusp of adulthood, getting the balance of credulity and worldliness just right. The lighting and set design are clever and director, Monique Touko, has used the available space very well. G is an eerie and thoroughly entertaining tale that raises some provocative questions about the pressures on black youth in a contemporary world.

Rated: ★★★★

Reviewed by J.C.
Photo by Isha Shah

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