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A Kind of People review – a fresh look at race and relationships | Stage


The British Sikh playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti is best known for 2004’s Behzti, controversially pulled by the Birmingham Rep after a protest descended into rioting. Her latest play looks at interracial relationships in modern Britain, and begins like a sitcom, with Gary (Richie Campbell) and Nicky (Claire-Louise Cordwell), a married couple, hosting a birthday party for their school friend Mark (Thomas Coombes). Gary and Mark are engineers for the same company and their boss, Victoria (Amy Morgan), has tagged along. After too many drinks, Victoria demands Gary show her how to twerk “like the girls with the big fat bottoms” and drunkenly raps Missy Elliott’s Get Ur Freak On (including the N word). The hilarious opening builds to a striking and tense confrontation, with Gary calling Victoria out for her history of racist comments.

Bhatti’s play sometimes feels like a rapid-fire list of issues – racism, unemployment, council housing all come up – with undercooked plots involving Islamophobia, child abuse and misogyny. We learn that Nicky’s father is racist and disapproves of their family – a somewhat tired plot device for white female characters married to black male characters. A more interesting take surfaces when Gary criticises his sister Karen (Petra Letang) for planning a date with a white man despite being married to a white woman. There is potential for more sophisticated dissections of privilege in modern Britain, but Bhatti’s dialogue is fresh and relatable.

At the Royal Court, London, until 18 Jan

Watch a trailer for A Kind of People



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