I think part of the problem is that ‘Black Love’ hasn’t scaled up from Paines Plough’s ultra bare-bones touring Roundabout theatre - another draft or two to let it breathe might have been handy...
Read more

A lush, wraparound, jazz-funk keyboard soundtrack provides the spine for this chamber musical, a jubilant celebration of black affection and identity tempered by white interference. It’s a likeable, often joyful but ultimately lopsided show, part family story and part polemic.
Read more

Some of my happiest theatrical memories are associated with the Kiln — or the Tricycle, as I still tend to think of it — so I find myself wondering how such a clumsy piece could have been chosen to launch the venue’s new season.
Read more

Despite the flaws, and the overriding impression of this still being a work-in-progress, Black Love is a refreshingly original piece of theatre, provocative but suffused with affection.
Read more