Blood of My Blood

The penultimate instalment in the Royal Court’s 2026 Upstairs programme of first time playwrights, Blood of My Blood by Joy Nesbitt is set in a shack in South Carolina, in both 1862 and the present, as a pregnant Black woman (in our time, the cabin now a hip Airbnb) seeks to commune with the spirits of her Civil War ancestors. We’re told it’s about ‘inheritance, belonging, and what we hear when we listen to the voices of the past’. Tatenda Shamiso directs a cast of Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ, Jodie Campbell, Hannah Morrish, Karene Peter and Patrick Vaill.