Belong review, Royal Court Upstairs

Belong is a play that bristles with ambition. It starts like a sit-com: Kayode, a British based Nigerian, has failed to win a seat in the general election after a racist diatribe about whites. His British wife, Rita, is unsurprised, and increasingly irritated by her husband's melancholia. To clear his head, Kayode goes home to his vixen of a mother in Lagos and finds himself embroiled in the far dirtier politics of his homeland.

Anyone with Nigerian friends will recognise the culturally comedic characteristics here with performance and volume used to entertain, enthrall and win points. The characters feel authentic, the dialogue is rude and punchy, and the assertion of God, right and might is used to still the unquiet waters of political dialogue.

Where the sit-com style of the beginning is allowed to develop - there are classically funny scenes including a night club fight and a political rally in a Nigerian market - Belong is glorious: the story of a westernised Nigerian trying to fit British templates of fairness onto African anarchy. What gets in the way is writer, Bola Agbaje's decision to look at issues of identity through Rita's resistance to visiting her ancestral homeland. By dint of her colour she is an outsider here, and by dint of her sensibility an outsider there. And?

In conclusion: Indu Rubasingham's light direction helps give lift and shape when the narrative line wobbles, providing us with a lively 90 minutes of very funny, and ultimately chastening, African mayhem.

References
Royal Court Theatre
Charles Spencer review, Daily Telegraph