Theatre Review - DEATH OF ENGLAND: CLOSING TIME
Sharon Duncan-Brewster (Denise) and Erin Doherty (Carly). [Helen Murray]
Closing Time concludes Clint Dyer and Roy Williams’ Death of England trilogy with the spotlight on the uneasy relationship of two women divided by race: Carly (Erin Doherty) and Denise (Sharon Duncan-Brewster).
Like Dyer and Williams’ solo plays about Michael, white, and his best friend Delroy, black, this two-hander examines racism, family, and working-class identity, while exploring what being “woke” means to different people and adding “cancel culture” into the mix.
Carly, Michael’s sister, had a child with Delroy and they now live together. Denise is Delroy’s mother. Despite their differences, the two women have grown to begrudgingly like each other.
They are shutting up their shared shop – the florist Carly inherited from her father and Denise’s West Indian takeaway, funded by her life savings. The men are conspicuously absent, watching a football match at the pub instead of helping them.
Over the course of 100 minutes, in between bickering, we learn of the women’s business venture and the reason for its closure.
The action is played out on ULTZ and Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey’s stage in the shape of a St George Cross and the pair set a furious pace.
Carly and Denise agree on some things and there’s a funny sequence deriding King Charles’ coronation: “A 74-year-old man whose never worked a day in his life is being showered from head to toe with a billion quids worth of stolen bling.”
Delroy and Carly, we learn, christened their baby daughter Meghan.
But the writing is not as focused as the preceding monologues, and although the performances are razor-sharp, the lines are delivered with such speed and volume in Dyer’s production that we occasionally miss what is said.
Otherwise, this is a provocative and fiery end to a compelling three-part state-of-the-nation drama that could not be more timely.
Until September 28