Right play, wrong place: The Fellowship, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed

Roy Williams’s new play is a wonky beast. It has two dense and cumbersome storylines that aren’t properly developed. Dawn is a mother grieving for her eldest son who was murdered by a gang of white boys. Her younger lad is dating a white girl who used to hang out with the killers. It’s a heavy start. But Williams doesn’t explore this web of bereavement and forbidden romance and turns instead to Dawn’s sister, Marcia, a barrister, who is dating a white MP. ‘Giles is one reshuffle away from being a cabinet minister.’ Dawn claims that all white people are die-hard racists who pine for the old days when the N-word was in regular use. She pours scorn on Marcia’s blossoming affair with Giles. ‘Some horny married pale-skin who ain’t getting it at home has got himself a taste of jungle fever.’ Marcia appears to endorse her sister’s racism and she complains that her illicit affair was exposed by a female solicitor whose name she can’t recall.