Off the Endz

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RE:Let 'Off The Endz', be the endz
Rarely does a play make me angry, but Off the Endz left me furious at how this came to fruition at the Royal Court main stage. Simply put, its a terrible script, with terrible direction and average to poor performances - how the Royal Court could have thought this poor copy of yet another turgid, one dimensional black ghetto play could be saying anything relevant or new, I will never understand. This HAS to sound the death knell to black ghetto theatre, otherwise it will be the death of black theatre itself. Full of cliques and poor construction the dialogue is preachy and repetitive the story was laughably predictable, right up to the obligatory shooting at the end. I wonder if this is a play that would never have left the starting posts if it had been penned by a white writer? Just because this young writer has an ability to put words on a page and produce passable sounding dialogue, it does not make her a writer of merit worthy of production, she needs more understanding of subtext, clarity and yes, for goodness sake DRAMA. Its the lack of her basics in creating a play that makes me so upset at the RC producers. The RC must look at the value of producing plays from its Young Writers programme if this is the quality it produces. Patronising to black and white audience members alike. I only hope the establishment has the guts to trash it as it deserves to be. A dark chapter in the RCs otherwise commendable history of finding new talent.

Reviewed by dannydiggers on Sunday, Feb 21st, 2010