'The Lonely Londoners' review — a slickly stylised staging that vividly evokes the experiences of the Windrush generation

Read our review of The Lonely Londoners, adapted by Roy Williams from Sam Selvon's novel, now in performances at the Kiln Theatre to 22 February.

First published in 1956, Trinidadian writer Sam Selvon’s episodic novel The Lonely Londoners charts the experiences of four young male members of the Windrush generation adapting to life in a cold and unfamiliar city, written in their own dialect, and takes the form of a slice of life investigating themes of race, masculinity, poverty (the characters are reduced to catching and eating pigeons) and isolation.

Transferring to the Kiln Theatre following a run at Jermyn Street Theatre in 2024, this adaptation by Roy Williams weaves the myriad plot strands together in a slickly stylised staging by Ebenezer Bamgboye that wonderfully captures the terror and weird beauty of London where the streets are certainly not paved with gold and many of the locals are openly hostile to anyone who is different.

The production boasts an excellent central quartet. Holding the group together is the brotherly Moses (Solomon Israel), the first point of contact for many new arrivals offering a roof for the night in his room in Bayswater (where there’s neither a bay nor water) and a smattering of practical advice.

Big City’s (Gilbert Kyem Jnr) schtick is that he never fails to get place names wrong; the unemployed Lewis (Tobi Bakare) is adjusting to the arrival of his mother and his wife; and wide-eyed new boy Galahad (Romario Simpson) arrives without any luggage, just plenty of breezy “big man” confidence until he learns to hate himself for being Black for the first time.

Filled with banter, with the foursome sitting around talking all sorts of nonsense, the dialogue is interspersed with some breathtaking physical interludes (choreographed by movement director Nevena Stojkov) in which the characters lift and support each other at their lowest ebbs, executing powerful jumps and spins. In contrast to the men’s muscularity, Aimée Powell as Moses’s lost love Christina provides fluid vocalising and dance that demonstrates just as much strength in its way.

Laura Ann Price’s stark set design is characterised by walls covered with grids of lightbulbs, not entirely dissimilar to bullet holes. Elliot Griggs’s nightclub-style lighting is a tour de force with its piercingly bright bursts of light, representative of a city on fire.

The narrative trajectory which is perhaps most poignant is that of Lewis, who finds himself turning into a different person in England, although his superbly haughty mother Tanty (Carol Moses) continues to see him as a child. Meanwhile his wife Agnes (Shannon Hayes), able to take on hostile shopkeepers and win through her force of character, almost relishes the challenge, as well as taking the initiative to speak more “proper” by mastering a set of tongue-twisters.

The meandering nature of the storytelling is a touch unwieldy and the first half is perhaps stronger than the second. If the dialogue is sometimes hard to understand due to the actors’ commitment to authenticity with their thick accents (kudos to voice and dialect coach Hazel Holder), it’s only a fair trade-off in light of the challenges that members of the Windrush generation – and indeed all immigrants throughout history – have faced in being heard.

The Lonely Londoners is at the Kiln Theatre to 22 February. Book The Lonely Londoners tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: The Lonely Londoners (Photos by Steve Gregson)