DEATH OF ENGLAND: MICHAEL at @SohoPlace

★★★★★

“intoxicating theatre at its best that calls for repeat viewing”

The red cross, in most peoples’ mind, represents a symbol that is potently English. On entering the auditorium @sohoplace for the first in Clint Dyer’s and Roy Williams’ trilogy of plays – “Death of England: Michael” – the playing space consists of a raised red cross. We are perhaps being told that we are in for an unmistakably ‘state-of-the-nation’ tirade but the insignia cuts much deeper and adopts a much more layered connotation. The red cross is also a symbol of protection or of neutrality. An international, borderless, organisation that takes care of people who are suffering. It protects those that wear the red cross. They are not part of the conflict.

The characters in “Death of England”, though, have little protection from their own inner conflicts. In the first of the one act plays we meet Michael (Thomas Coombes); a wide-boy, white-boy, working-class, cockney whose fury can no longer be contained. It is a fury that he blames others for, yet he knows it is more about himself. Coombes brilliantly gives violent vent to this self-contradiction in a performance that is mesmerising, brutal, shocking, tender, vulnerable, aggressive, honest and humorous all within the same heartbeat. His best friend is British-born, Caribbean Delroy. His late father was an unashamed racist whose approval he could never quite meet and whose politics he couldn’t escape. He takes us on a journey through their backstory, through twists and turns as white-knuckle and manic as Coombes’ delivery. It culminates in Michael, crazed through drink and drugs, launching into a scathing attack on the attendees at his father’s funeral.

Although a one-man show, Coombes makes us feel he is surrounded by a full ensemble such is the skill with which he brings the outside characters to life. The anecdotes race past at breakneck speed but at no point does nuance or precision become roadkill. The attention to detail is spot on to the point we see uncomfortable shards of ourselves reflected in Michael’s shattered personality. The unavoidable questions Michael asks of himself are just as much directed to the audience, an all-encompassing ring of jurors and judges that he cannot escape. Just as we cannot escape the pull of Coombes’ magnetic charisma.

Wide topics (Brexit, Windrush, Black Lives Matter) are brought under the microscope while moments of intimacy are thrust into the global arena. The affect is unsettling. On occasion you feel that that the writers’ sympathies lie with the racists, but within a stroke they become the guilty party. One moment it is harrowing, the next laugh out loud funny. The fact that the co-writers, Dyer and Williams, are both black British artists might remove some of the limits of what can be said, but on stage it is as irrelevant as it is poignant. The drama transcends Britishness. The themes are neither black nor white. There is too much heart and soul, and the posthumous discoveries that Michael makes of his father’s ambiguities and secrets are heart-wrenching and heart-warming.

We never get full reconciliation. But the society this play depicts never will either. We think we may have seen all sides of the debate until we realise this is only the first part of a trilogy. Not only are we left wanting more, but we also have the added satisfaction of being promised more. “Death of England: Michael” is intoxicating theatre at its best that calls for repeat viewing. But let’s get through the next instalment first.