An outrageous play about imperialism, cross-racial adoption, cultural appropriation – and tea.
Feb 14th to 19th 2022
Janice Okoh
Tickets are now available for the rescheduled performances of this wonderful production.
There are only three dates available, the 14th, 15th and 19th February, so get your tickets quick!
Review Comments from Opening Night
"a play that rips the mask off white privilege when it tries to present an enlightened face and exposes the pain of those affected by it. The fact that the play is side-splittingly funny in parts only makes the point more poignantly."
...the awkwardness of people trying to pretend to say and think the right things without actually meaning or understanding them... shocking, profound, ordinary and tragic, and utterly believable." Nick Le Mesurier, Leamington Courier
THE PLAY
The gift of the title is a Black African girl rescued from captors, brought to England and given to Queen Victoria. The Queen adopts her and names her Sarah, who is raised as the ward of a series of trusted guardians within royal circles. We meet Sarah at her Brighton home in 1862, on the eve of her departure for Africa with her businessman husband James. She is expecting a visit from her guardian Mrs Schoen, who brings unexpected and undesirable guests to tea.
In the present day, a middle class black British couple, Sarah an engineer and James an antique dealer, have recently moved to a Cheshire village with their adopted daughter. Sarah and James are discussing her coming to terms with a new project management job in Nigeria, when the doorbell rings. Neighbours Harriet and Ben have brought a “settling in” gift of homemade muffins. They stay for tea with surprising, shocking and hilarious results.
When the two Sarahs take tea with Queen Victoria the consequences are more than two of them could have imagined.
This is an amateur production by arrangement with Nick Hern Books.
Reviews of the Play
"a clever and complex vision of black Britons, then and now... The Gift offers a formally original and intellectual engagement with forgotten history, cross-racial adoption and the impact of imperialism on black British lives today." (Arifa Akbar, The Guardian)
"This is an excruciatingly well-written play as...Okoh brilliantly skewers contemporary, white views surrounding race." (Oliver Ainley, Whatsonstage.com)