By Aline Mahrud

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN?: Sunday 16 April (matinee), running to 7 May 2023 RUNTIME: 130 minutes (including a 20-minute interval) UPDATE: For Black Boys transfers to the Garrick Theatre 29 February through 4 May 2024 Tickets

WHERE?: Apollo Theatre, West End, London

Can theatre save lives?

• Read on for reasons including how we think this production deserves to have a life after this run

If that sounds like a ridiculous question to ask, you probably haven’t seen this original play which has transferred twice now – currently into the West End – and closes soon.

The premise is simple: 6 young black men sit on chairs on stage in a room in a group therapy session together and talk about why they are there, ultimately finding comfort in each other’s company.

But it’s so much more than that. Movement director Theophilus O. Bailey has created something which is occasionally balletic and beautiful.

At other times there are moments incorporating hit songs that will be familiar to this predominantly young and black audience and your biggest mistake would be assuming that this play’s downbeat title gives the only clue to its content because, although hugely serious, it’s also occasionally joyous, funny and, ultimately life-affirming.

We turn to leave after the inevitable standing ovation and there’s an announcement over the venue’s public address system that those who need to compose themselves have 15 minutes to do so which is just as well because the woman in the seat behind me is inconsolable and in tears.

The male audience member sat next to me received a text at the interval asking him how many times he’d cried already and we can hear him stifling sniffles during the show’s most moving moment which we shall come to later.

Author Ryan Calais Cameron drew inspiration from Ntozake Shange’s For Coloured Girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf and this piece was shortlisted for 2 Oliviers and won a Best Performer Stage Debut member for each of its cast – Mark Akintimehin, Emmanuel Akwafo, Nnabiko Ejimofor, Darragh Hand, Aruna Jalloh, and Kaine Lawrence.

We have 2 favourite moments although, to be fair, it is a show littered with so many. Ejimofor plays Jet and describes poetically the joy of finding transient love in the dark but also how his homosexuality would mean him losing his friends and family. And we can hear muffled sniffles all around us.

Ejimofor and Akintimehim’s Onyx ruminate on distant and violent fathers and we’re left to dwell on the story of a stubborn man not seeking treatment for his cancer because he didn’t want to ask for help.

Hand’s Sable dances brilliantly but also has some of the funniest moments not least as a vain commitment-phobe, addicted to the thrill of female conquests and unable to settle down with his true love.

Akwafo’s Pitch is simultaneously comical and heartbreaking as a shy man unable to ask the woman who he has fallen in love with out.

Jalloh’s Obsidian strikes a chord as the self-professed coward disturbed by the gang violence he is witnessing who cradles the victim, dying in his arms, until help arrives.

Lawrence’s Midnight joins a conversation about virginity that turns dark when child abuse rears its head.

For Black Boys is obviously about race but also the universal problem of men finding it difficult to open up about their mental health problems and who couldn’t fail to want to join the group hug at the show’s close as they all prove with a little love and understanding life can truly be worth living.

You’ve not long to catch this show before it closes and our Sunday matinee was a sell out so do rush to catch it if you can. It’s so good that we hope it finds another transfer after this run because it’s theatre which is so relevant and timely that it could just save lives.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy Nimax Tickets
• Have you heard any of these songs or seen any of these shows? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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