Death of England: Closing Time completes the “decade-long journey” in Clint Dyer and Roy Williams’ Death of England trilogy. Following on from the success of Death of England: Michael and Death of England: Delroy, we now meet the women of the trilogy, Caly and Denise, on the brink of being forced to close their joint venture; a florist and a takeaway.

For those who have seen Michael and Delroy, these characters will be familiar as Caly is Michael’s sister and Delroy’s girlfriend, and Denise is Delroy’s mother. But even if you haven’t seen the first two instalments, the women’s characters and dynamics are fleshed out enough to understand this play as a standalone piece which, at its core, is essentially about a mother and a “daughter-in-sin”, from different cultures who clash but ultimately come back together.

Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey and ULTZ’s set design of an electric red cross (symbolising the St George’s flag) works incredibly well and offers a dynamic playground for both comedy, drama and serious discussion around English life and identity. The stars of the cross and in this show are undoubtedly the excellent acting titans, Sharon Duncan-Brewster and Erin Doherty.

Erin Doherty is spellbinding as Caly; she commands the stage with boundless energy and panache. Audiences can’t help but warm to Caly (probably because Doherty is just so charismatic, breaking the fourth wall with excellent flair), only to have those feelings acutely and smartly challenged by Dyer and Williams, placing ignorant and racially insensitive words into her mouth. The central conflict revolves around Caly uploading a video where she crudely and offensively tells a troop of white girls on a hen do how to “keep” their “black man”. This leads to some deeply uncomfortable moments when you see the reality of casual racism and how it weaves itself into a kind of comedy that much of the audience feel complicit in. It’s pretty shocking to see this side of Caly when we’ve just seen Caly win the audience over with her love for Delroy, yet proceeds to so blatantly and mindlessly offend his culture and people. But that duality of character and not being afraid to not paint Caly neither in the role of ‘hero’ nor ‘villain’ cliche is a testament to Dyer and William’s writing.

Sharon Duncan-Brewster is utterly captivating as Denise, engaging the audience with her superb, elegant and passionate delivery. Denise is obviously the more ‘endearing’ character and she makes some absolutely corking speeches that win the audience over time and time again. One particularly strong moment is when Denise brilliantly takes down the hypocrisy of King Charles’ Coronation (with a potentially hilarious nod to Doherty’s work in The Crown as sound design by Benjamin Grant and Pete Malkin soundtrack this part of the play with the theme music from the Netflix hit). Caly and Denise spar well with each other and ultimately their relationship resolves to one of respect, this resolution is made more powerful by the cracking chemistry between Doherty and Duncan-Brewster.

Credit must go to the actors and the sharp direction of Clint Dyer, who despite the long 100-minute run time, make the play actively engaging at all times. However, this is potentially the sticking spot of the play. It moves through so many heavy themes and emotive plot points that the audience doesn’t really get much breathing time to process or come to terms with everything they’ve seen. Yet perhaps that is also the play’s strength; maybe the writers thought ‘why waste time carving out digestive room when your script is this action-packed and meaningful’? It’s admirable that with Dyer and Williams’ trilogy, they have managed to astutely comment on the complexities of modern British life and identity. With their trilogy completed, it will be fascinating to see what Dyer and Williams do next.

**** Four stars

Reviewed by: Nancy Brie

Death of England: Closing Time plays at London’s @sohoplace until 28 September, with further info here.