Theatre

Warmth and sharp irreverence animate this first play by young writer Bola Agbaje, which turns its playful focus on the way teens define themselves in multicultural Britain. The action revolves around a comic relationship between Yemi, born in Britain, and Ikudayisi, born in Nigeria – two brothers who simply go to a corner shop to buy some milk, yet find their identities challenged by everyone from a petrified pensioner to a truculent half-Jamaican.This is the first full production in this year’s Royal Court Young Writers’ Programme, and it is served well by director Bijan Sheibani’s exuberant interpretation.

The Jerwood Theatre Upstairs has been transformed into a theatre in the round, with two tiers of stone-coloured benches – so that ironically, in the week that new artistic director Dominic Cooke has announced the Royal Court’s greater focus on the middle classes, it feels like we’re sitting in a council-estate yard. Tunji Lucas’s goofy giant Ikudayisi may be the elder and taller of the two brothers, but he’s not as streetwise as Yemi, and while he preaches about being in touch with his Nigerian roots, he often lapses into an American accent. Yemi seems incapable of keeping out of trouble: he accuses a Bangladeshi shopkeeper of concealing a bomb factory, and lashes out at a half-Jamaican girl called Armani (a dynamic Zawe Ashton) when she mouthily dismisses him for being African.

After the controversy surrounding Jade Goody’s behaviour in ‘Big Brother’, it’s fascinating to sit in a largely black audience and hear the roars of laughter as the teenagers trade insults for ignorance. Agbaje’s is a young and sometimes immature voice, but her humanity and ear for snappy dialogue bodes well for a bright, revealing, future.