Each actor was wholly committed to his character’s humanity and comedic timing. Together, they brought to life six individual characters with six unique worlds and stories.
The energy in the audience of the East London Theatre School’s production of For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy was electric. The crowd responded viscerally to both the show’s humour and gravity. Each performer arrived onstage to thunderous applause as enthusiastic as celebrity entrances on the West End, and all received immediate standing ovations. Although Ryan Calais Cameron’s excellent script can take some credit for the positive reception, the dynamic performers made this production particularly memorable.
For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy premiered in 2021 and was performed on the West End as recently as 2024. It won Best New Play at the 2022 Black British Theatre Awards and received multiple Olivier nominations the following year. The dialogue is poetic, dense, and demands skilled performances from all involved.
The play follows six Black British men – Jet, Midnight, Obsidian, Onyx, Pitch, and Sable – through a series of conversations, movement, and musical interludes as they explore their relationship to Blackness, masculinity, sexuality, and individual identity; characters alternate recounting and reliving formative moments and memories from their past. These fragmented personal narratives allow performers to transition in and out of the spotlight. When they are not centre-stage, they become members of a chorus for each other’s stories, provoking and reacting with the intimacy of close friends.
For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy is a true ensemble piece and the entire cast remains onstage throughout. Thankfully, each actor was wholly committed to his character’s humanity and comedic timing. Together, they brought to life six individual characters with six unique worlds and stories. Jeremiah Oham’s vulnerable performance reflected the pained sensitivity and anxieties of adolescence. No one got more laughs than Jordan Gboho, who also shouldered one of the play’s darkest moments with heartbreaking authenticity. Oluwapelumi Adesanya delivered a powerful closing monologue about violence and innocence; the power of the words matched by his emotional performance.
The most memorable performances of the evening, however, came from Jamal Abdul, Clayton Cole, and Khamali Williams, who transcended the academic setting. Cole disappeared into his character of the suave, if innocent, romantic. Williams and Abdul were the beating heart of the play. Their presence was the connective thread holding disparate moments and scenes together. Williams embraced the script’s lyricality and his character’s unique and intense emotional range. Abdul provided some of the most heartfelt and devastating line deliveries of the evening.
This production reduced the play’s original runtime by thirty minutes. The ending came just in time, but certain jarring transitions felt like trace evidence of lost scenes. The play’s use of popular music is enjoyable and important to the script, but it felt modestly overused in the condensed production. Songs largely lacked intros and outros – they cut in and out sharply and at random – which stopped them from feeling like a natural extension of the events onstage. Performers struggled to compete against the volume, and critical moments were undermined as music drowned out dialogue. Minor blocking decisions and directorial choices felt unfinished, and there was the occasional tech malfunction. Nonetheless, the charisma of the performers made such flaws easy to ignore.
It’s unfortunate that The East London Theatre School’s production of For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy was a two-night-only event. It was equally moving and ephemeral. The actors, on the other hand, are likely here to stay. We’ll undoubtedly see them on stage again and possibly for a very long time.