Regents Park Open Air Theatre, London – until 26th July 2025
Reviewed by Celia Armand Smith
4*****
Originally staged in 2007, Dominic Cooke’s RSC adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s iconic 2001 novel Noughts and Crosses comes to the Regents Park Theatre. This groundbreaking work imagines a world where racial power dynamics are flipped, and black “Crosses” get the best education and opportunities and white “Noughts” are marginalised and living on the fringes of society. In a Romeo and Juliet style story, the play follows the relationship between Sephy, a Cross, and Callum, a Nought, as they navigate teenage relationships, privilege, inequality, and family ties.
In Tinuke Craig’s production, Callum (Noah Valentine) is a bright lad with lots of potential, but the fractured world he has been born into has different ideas for him. His childhood friend Sephy (Corinna Brown) goes to the fancy segregated school where only a few Nought scholarship pupils are allowed and Callum is one of them. With pressure from both of their families to toe very different lines, and societal rules that mean they can’t be together, the teens battle to find their voice and their place.
The production is well suited to the large exposed stage at the Open Air Theatre. Colin Richmond’s set of rusted stairs, towers, and floors is the perfect backdrop for the cast as they lurk in the background, draping themselves over walkways and leaning against posts, menacingly watching the world go by. When there is a manhunt, people spring from the undergrowth with torches. In the second act, as the light dims and the tension increases, the increasingly bleak plot unfolds, heading towards a big, grief filled ending.
There is a lot of ground to cover in this play, and the excellent cast keeps it moving at pace. Kate Kordel and Amanda Bright are fantastic as the mothers of the teens, and Alex Boaden is truly terrifying as Callum’s older brother Jude, full of hatred for a system that has kept him down.
Although originally written 25 years ago, the themes in Noughts and Crosses are all as depressingly relevant today as they were back in 2001. An important watch for the young adults it was originally written for, and the older adults who are steering them through life.