Writer: Malorie Blackman, adapted by Dominic Cooke
Director: Tinuke Craig
To first read Malorie Blackman’s young adult novel Noughts & Crosses is to be intrigued, tantalised. Who are these privileged Crosses, this underclass of Noughts? Dramatised, it’s all clear from the start. Blackman’s premise is of an inverted society. White people are the despised Noughts, marginalised in a society run by the Black majority. It’s a clever idea which allows Blackman to expose the workings of structural racism and its dangerously divisive effects.
And centrally, it’s a love story between Sephy and Callum – Sephy, a Cross, the younger daughter of the deputy prime minister and Callum from a struggling Nought family. Their friendship began in childhood when Callum’s mother worked for Sephy’s mother.
Dominic Cooke’s adaptation, directed for Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre by Tinuke Craig, is lively and fast paced, but inevitably, much of the book’s subtleties are lost. The action plays out in a sequence of short, punchy scenes, but there is little time for character development. In particular, we don’t really see into the inner world of Sephy and Callum, whose voices we hear in the book narrating the chapters alternately.
This production has a strong cast, with likeable performances from the young performers, in particular Corinna Brown as Sephy and Noah Valentine as Callum. Chanel Waddock is notable as Lynette, Callum’s complex and vulnerable older sister. Other characters tend to be two-dimensional, not giving much scope for the actors. So Alex Boaden does his best with bullying older brother Jude, as do Kate Kordel and Richard Riddell as parents Meggie and Ryan. Amanda Bright gives a strong performance as Jasmine, Sephy’s mother, as does Habib Nasib Nader as Kamal, her husband. Craig uses the rest of the cast to haunt the story, always present in the upper regions of the set, ready to spring into action. But this is essentially an intimate story, its focus on the handful of characters whose lives lie at its centre.
Colin Richmond’s set, with its rusted remnants of tower blocks, presents a bleak world. It’s certainly appropriate for the Noughts, though barely suggestive of the contrasting world of the wealthy Crosses. Many of the love scenes take place in secret at the private beach owned by Sephy’s family, which can only be suggested by Max Pappenheim’s sound design. There’s a drabness about the costumes, too, which tends to flatten the distinction between Noughts and Crosses.
This production is aimed at young adults, and it has the appeal of an exciting story arc and plenty of dramatic tension. But it’s overly schematic and tends to muffle the intimacy of the central love story, which should lie at its heart.
Runs until 26 July 2025
