Review: Sam Selvon's Quintessential London Novel Is Now A Must-See Play
Last Updated 19 January 2025

Sam Selvon's comical Windrush novel The Lonely Londoners reimagined with interpretive dance? Sounds iffy, doesn't it.
Writer Roy Williams/director Ebenezer Bamgboye's adaptation moves in mysterious ways, but boy does it all come together. An obvious move would've been to lay down a soundtrack of lilting Calypso — Lord Kitchener's London Is the Place for Me, for one — instead, we get Pink Floyd, the Beatles and Blur. Again: shouldn't work. Does.
Following rave notices at the Jermyn Street Theatre last year, The Lonely Londoners transfers to the Kiln, and before us press have had time to hammer out more rhapsodising reviews, it's already threatening to sell out. What's all the fuss? The Lonely Londoners sings with all the charm of the novel — which, after all, is one of the finest penned about London. Centred around the sagacious Moses (Solomon Israel) and his brotherhood — hapless schemer Big City (Gilbert Kyem Jnr), splenetically paranoid Lewis (Tobi Bakare), and literally-fresh-off-the-boat Galahad (Romario Simpson) — together they attempt to thrive (but ultimately survive) in a heartless London: chatting up girls, scooping up pigeons from the park for Sunday lunch. They have very little, but they've got each other — beautifully demonstrated in a dance vignette.

London can be a bastard though — especially if you're Black and it's the 1950s. The city is cast as a latent monster, bristling with poisonous spikes. Lights and bass throb as Galahad notices the conspicuous lack of gold paving, and shortly after, ends up on said pavement — quite literally smacked in the face with reality. In this cut-throat land, it's the women who deal with it better — Lewis' spirited wife Agnes (played by Shannon Hayes), who won't take nonsense from her husband, let alone xenophobic shopkeepers, and his despairing mother (a rasping, standout performance from Carol Moses).
Though the Lonely Londoners is about a certain group of people at a certain time, it shares a universal understanding: we often don't know why we put up with London — the cold, the expense, the people. And yet we'll do anything to stay here.
As with the story's protagonists, are the bright lights of the West End now calling this standout adaptation?
The Lonely Londoners, Kiln Theatre, Kilburn, until 15 February 2025