Writers: Lolly Whitney Low and Siobán Whitney Low
Director: Lolly Whitney Low
God’s Gift, playing in the last week of Peckham Fringe, is certainly ambitious. It charts the life of a posh boys’ school in Dulwich over the course of 110 years or so, suggesting that little changes in its running. The story of two Jamaican boys in 1911 who discover ways to adapt to the strict rules of God’s Gift is a delight. However, the other narrative that explores the unearthing of a series of sexual assaults perpetrated by boys in 2018 is less successful. Writers Lolly and Siobán Whitney Low attempt to marry these histories through the focus of elitist power and privilege, but the results are unconvincing.
Thabo Kona is outstanding as Nunes, a pupil of 1911. Nunes has done well at God’s Gift and been promoted to prefect, which means that he has his own room and no longer has to sleep in the dormitories where the elder boys snore, and the younger ones cry for home. He hides his Jamaican accent and instead has a perfectly ripe plum in his mouth. He encourages new boy Shirley to do the same if he wants to stay on at the school. And joining the cricket team is one way in which Black boys can be accepted by the other pupils and schoolmasters.
Kona’s scenes with Dé Jean Brown as Shirley are the best of the evening, and the boys’ story, set decades before Windrush, is an unfamiliar one. The two actors are well-rehearsed, bringing comedy and poignancy to their characters. The scenes set in 2018 are not as assured and are often confusing. In them is Sarah Priddy’s Norma, hired to clean up the school’s reputation, Belenus Johnston as her son Ambrose, a new boy at the school and her drunk father Gus (Richard Bobb-Semple), himself the son of 1911’s Shirley. Their interactions are not as confident as Kona and Brown’s, and their struggle to fight the system is frustratingly unclear.
All of the actors play multiple roles, but there are too many characters for them to perform. The actors are forced to run around behind the curtains to change clothes and find, sometimes unsuccessfully, the other entrances and exits that the gaps in the curtains afford. Lines are missed, props forgotten, and, at one point, part of the set is knocked off as someone dashes off stage. None of this is the actors’ fault; simply that they have too much to do.
The Whitney Lows also try to address too many issues in the more contemporary scenes. There are discussions of autism medications, the wearing of do-rags as school uniform, Covid restrictions, and historical sexual assaults, and, while they are all important, they are very different to the subjects raised in 1911. The pairing of the two narratives just doesn’t work.
However, the playwrights have tried to do something different, and for that they should be commended. And Thabo Kano’s performance here promises great things for the young actor.
Runs until 2 June 2026
Peckham Fringe runs until 5 June 2026
