Lloyd Evans

Kwame Kwei-Armah’s embarrassing update of Love Thy Neighbour: Beneatha’s Place, at the Young Vic, reviewed

Plus: another race-hate play at the Arcola Theatre

• From magazine issue: 15 July 2023

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  Lloyd Evans

  Kwame Kwei-Armah’s embarrassing update of Love Thy Neighbour: Beneatha’s Place, at the Young Vic, reviewed

  

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• Beneatha’s Place

  Young Vic, until 5 August

• Duck

  Arcola Theatre

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Alexander Larman

What happened to the Rishi Sunak I knew at school?

Another race-hate play, Duck, has reached the Arcola. This 85-minute monologue is delivered by an angry pipsqueak, Ismail, who his classmates call Smiley or Smelly. He loves cricket but he’s a feeble player and he embarrasses himself at Lord’s during an exhibition match between his school team and the old boys. After being bowled out for a duck he blunders in the field by dropping a catch. ‘Howzat,’ he cries speculatively. The umpire, Mr Eagles, declines the appeal and poor little Ismail assumes that the decision was racist. He kicks the stumps over and storms out of the MCC taking the match ball with him to ruin the game for everyone else.

As he quick-marches towards the family mansion in St John’s Wood, he’s arrested on suspicion of terrorism because the year happens to be 2005 and the capital is on high alert after an Islamist bombing. A saviour arrives to liberate Smiley from the cops and it’s none other than the ‘racist’ umpire Mr Eagles. So he’s not a bigot, he’s a hero. In a monologue, Ismail reveals that the real source of his chippy resentment is his father, an Indian immigrant, who imported his mistrust of other communities from the subcontinent where racial and religious divisions are far deeper than in Britain. He warned Ismail that the UK would never accept him and the naive dimwit believed this advice despite all the evidence to the contrary. If the English hate Ismail, why do they let him represent his school at the home of cricket?

These race-hate plays share important features. The writers have to delve into the past to find instances of active racism but they ignore the obvious conclusion that racism is in decline. Their income depends on bigotry so they have to exaggerate it or just make it up. A derangement has overtaken these playwrights. They consider themselves infallible and evidently believe that their pronouncements about race must be correct and virtuous even if they’re demonstrably false and malicious.