Ryan Calais Cameron on returning to the West End with 'Retrograde'

After wild success with For Black Boys, Ryan Calais Cameron is back in the West End with something completely different – and necessary.

Ryan Calais Cameron has had a life-changing few years. This is no exaggeration. Until relatively recently, the writer, director and Nouveau Riche theatre company founder was moonlighting at a young people’s homelessness charity, writing plays in his free time and rejoicing when his work would sell well at small venues.

“I came from fringe theatre, where even if you sell out, it’s like 50 or 80 seats,” he recalls. With plays such as Rhapsody, Typical and Queens of Sheba, a co-write with Jessica L Hagan, the south-east Londoner steadily made a name for himself off-West End throughout the 2010s. But it was one particular play, a genre-defying, non-linear exploration of Black men’s mental health, that turned the heat up on his career in ways he never imagined.

For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy debuted at the New Diorama theatre in October 2021, garnering middling reviews from broadsheet critics who didn’t quite get the vision. It went down much better with its audiences, and transferred to the Royal Court six months later after a round of tweaks from the author. Playful and poignant, the show resonated with audiences once again, who raved about how beautifully the script and the actors told stories of Black boys and men and started meaningful discussions about how they’re seen in the world.

Soon, it was the show you had to beg, borrow or steal to see, and from 2022 to 2024, For Black Boys sold out three West End runs, with early critics swiftly changing their tunes. “It became bigger than any of us could have ever imagined,” Calais Cameron says. “To go to the West End three times and to sell out houses of 800, 900 seats each night? It was unheard of then. It’s unheard of now.”

Calais Cameron, 36, grew up with five sisters in 1990s Catford, a majority working-class area of south east London. “We might’ve gone to the cinema every now and then, but theatre felt like something that was for people from different classes,” he explains. “I always loved art, and stories though – and as I got older, I knew I wanted to tell them. I didn’t have the money to be making films, so I was like, let me look into theatre.”

After studying acting in Bournemouth, Calais Cameron found the lack of variety in roles for Black actors frustrating. While many of his peers sought opportunities in the States, he stayed home to see what he could create for people like himself. “Going to LA or Atlanta seemed amazing, but I thought, I’d love to try and do some stuff here,” Calais Cameron recalls. “I was always that person online saying, ‘someone needs to write this idea for us’. So I thought, I’m just gonna have a go, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. But at least I can satisfy that creativity in my mind that’s looking for something more than what I’m being offered.”

As we talk in a quiet nook at Kilburn’s Kiln theatre, Calais Cameron is on the verge of his next West End transfer, Retrograde. If you were expecting a similar play to his last smash hit, though, get ready to strap in for something completely different – a reflection of American anti-communist anxiety in the context of cinematic icon Sidney Poitier.

Like many, Calais Cameron was aware that Poitier was a significant figure in film as the first Black man to win Best Actor at the Academy Awards for 1963’s Lilies of the Field. But reading further about him around Poitier’s 90th birthday in 2017, the writer discovered how McCarthyism – the political repression and persecution of left-wing individuals amid fear of Soviet influence – had an impact on Black creatives of the time, who were hounded to denounce their peers or risk never working again. “I’d never seen anything about this period told from the perspective of a Black person, somebody that was already under immense oppression and blacklisting,” he says. “I was like, ‘Man, that really sounds like a really cool script.’”

Retrograde debuted at the Kiln back in 2023, just as the first West End run of For Black Boys began. Critics marvelled at how masterfully the quick-fire dialogue transported the room to 1950s California, with a trio of distinct characters that seemed perfectly ripped from the time – Poitier, played by Ivanno Jeremiah; a coarse film executive named named Mr Parks (Daniel Lapaine), and Bobby (Ian Bonar), a screenwriter. Jeremiah is the only actor that has come along from the Kiln to the West End run at the Apollo theatre (Parks is now played by Stanley Townsend, and Bobby by Oliver Johnstone) – partly due to timing, partly due to Calais Cameron considering him an indispensable part of the story. “Ivanno just has the spirit of Sidney,” he says. “When you see it, you’ll know exactly what I mean. It’s one of those things where I had to keep Ivanno by any means, because the performance that he delivers is just breathtaking. We’ve done a lot to make sure that we keep him.”

The play is inspired by a real scenario Poitier faced, in which he was told to denounce Paul Robeson, one of his acting heroes and an active civil rights campaigner. To do justice to the story, Calais Cameron knew he’d have to research long and hard. “It was unlike a lot of the stories I had written at that time that were about myself or my environment – I could do my research just like that,” he recalls. “But this, I was researching a completely different culture.” Thankfully, after winning the Offies Adopt A Playwright Award in 2018 for his play Rhapsody, Calais Cameron had the funds to spend a year researching full-time, visiting the States and learning all he could on the ground.

Step one in the road to Retrograde was delving deep in Sidney Poitier: the man. “I was very aware of the public image that Sidney had, this noble, stately Black man – but who is Sidney Poitier when the lights are off? Who is he when he’s had a bad day?” Then came learning about the politics of the time, which Calais Cameron noted as being remarkably familiar to the present day. “There’s that hysteria about people fearing that they’re ‘losing their country’, which is very similar to the stuff that is happening right now,” he says. “I love the fact that there is so much similarity that I can draw from.”

As a writer and director, Calais Cameron relishes being deeply involved in the creative process of moving his work from page to stage. Kiln’s artistic director and CEO Amit Sharma resumes directing duties for Retrograde at the Apollo, with the playwright more than happy to bring in others’ ideas to craft the finished product. “Whether this is my first play or my 50th, I don’t think that that feeling of standing in a room with all these people dissecting and adding colour to something that only used to exist in my mind will get old,” he says. “It’s probably one of the most special experiences that you could ever have as an artist. I feel truly blessed.”

In the last two years, Calais Cameron has written for TV shows such as The Flatshare, Boarders and Queenie. With more work comes more recognition – and a new lifestyle. Calais Cameron mentions that his success has meant he, his wife Shavani and their four children have been able to move to a new area – a major life moment. “You change neighbourhoods, but you still want to attach yourself to things that you’ve always known,” he admits. “So I feel like someone who’s in between two worlds constantly.”

An excellent run of plays and widespread recognition doesn’t mean it’s time to rest, though. “I’m a freelancer, so I always know that I’m one bad job away from going back to Catford,” Calais Cameron laughs. “I have less time now as well – when I was writing For Black Boys and Retrograde, I didn’t have commissions; I had a full-time job. I could write when I wanted to write. Writing For Black Boys was a process over 10 years. Nobody today is giving me 10 years to write any project, or even the five for Retrograde. It has to have a quicker turnaround, but I don’t want to give something that I don’t feel like is of the right quality.”

Even though his working circumstances have changed, with more pressure to put out work for mass appeal, Calais Cameron has no interest in putting out art for the sake of being popular. “If I was just trying to do the same but different, I would’ve written “For Black Grandads” after For Black Boys, just because it’s what people think they want,” he says dryly. “But here’s something like Retrograde instead – it’s completely different, and hopefully you still want it in the same way. If not, then hey. But I need to be able to feed my creativity first and foremost.”

As our chat draws to a close, and Calais Cameron returns to rehearsals, I have the feeling that no matter how different this piece is, this is only the beginning of his rise. Self-assured, affable and imbued with a completely refreshing energy, British theatre’s new star has well and truly arrived.

Book Retrograde tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Ryan Calais Cameron. (Photo by Michael Wharley). Inset: For Black Boys and Retrograde (photos courtesy of productions)

This article first appeared in the April 2025 issue of London Theatre Magazine.