Clint Dyer and Roy Williams’ Death of England is a trilogy of interconnected plays that offers an account of the state of the nation from the perspective of two working-class families, one white and one black. In part one, Michael is grieving for the death of his father, while trying to make sense of the complicated legacy of his father’s racism. In part two, Michael’s best friend, Delroy, presents an alternative view of Michael and his family, and of England, from his experience as a young black man. In the final play, Closing Time, Michael’s sister, Carly, and Delroy’s mother, Denise provide their voice on the challenges of living with their respective families in a multi-racial country.
The trilogy had a decade-long gestation, beginning in 2014 with a ten-minute film introducing Michael grieving for his late father, which Dyer and Williams then expanded into a full-length play in the form of a monologue delivered in a raging performance by Rafe Spall at the National Theatre in early 2020. Delroy was due to tell his story on the same stage in the Autumn of 2020 when Covid forced the closure of our theatres. In an inventive response to lockdown, Dyer and Williams amalgamated these first two monologues into a staged film entitled Death of England: Face to Face. The final part of the family story was performed at the National in October 2023, before all three plays were updated and mounted together at the Soho Place theatre in London in the summer of 2024.
The plays certainly touched a nerve with its audiences, and I am delighted and honoured to be able to welcome playwright, Roy Williams, to the podcast to talk about his searing state-of-the nation drama.
