Birmingham Hippodrome until 31st January 2026
Reviewed by Emma Millward
5*****
Please Do Not Touch arrived at Birmingham Hippodrome’s Patrick Studio this week. The play is a co-production between Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre and China Plate. This one-man show follows the story of Mason (Selorm Adonu), a young Black man who uses TikTok to document the colonial history of artefacts found in British museums and stately homes. During a broadcast, he points out a Somali wooden afro comb placed in a glass cabinet with a sign reading ‘Please Do Not Touch’. He notices the cabinet is unlocked and removes the comb. He is charged with theft and sentenced to 18 months in a Young Offenders Institution in Wolverhampton.
What follows is Mason’s journey through the prison system as he comes to terms with the injustice of such a harsh sentence. He finds solace in the prison library and discovers a passion for reading and writing. The script is based on former Birmingham Poet Laureate Casey Bailey’s poetry collection of the same name. Bailey’s gift for writing and the spoken word is evident throughout the show. He gets his messages across without ever becoming preachy.
Selorm Adonu’s performance is calm, captivating and deeply absorbing. There are moments of humour, quiet anger, and vulnerability that are genuinely uncomfortable to witness. The closeness of the Patrick Studio means there is nowhere to look but at him, and that proximity makes the experience all the more powerful. Adonu portrays the other characters he encounters, including his visiting parents and Davis, the prison guard who offers Mason advice on fitting in when he first arrives. Adonu skilfully embodies the other characters. He not only adopts other voices, but also changes his entire body language and posture for each character. A standout moment came when he was playing Mason’s mother. For a few moments, he totally embodied that character, complete with tender motherly love mixed with rage at the injustice her son is enduring. Adonu’s movement around the stage choreographed by Movement Director Keiren Hamilton-Amos is mesmerising.
The set design by Miriam Nabarro is simple, but incredibly effective. We begin the show with a starkly lit orange background of the stately home, before transitioning to the prison cell with bunk beds and a table. There is also a metal case that opens out to reveal the library. The set is built on a revolving base that Selorm Adonu moves around at different points in the performance. Gillian Tan’s tube lighting is built into the edges of the set and often flickers to match the onstage action. Throughout, Kayodeine’s exceptional music and sound design almost becomes a character in its own right. The eerie lighting, combined with the atmospheric score adds an uncomfortable and often downright claustrophobic edge to proceedings. Gail Babb’s direction is as tight as expected of a 65-minute show, where every minute is used wisely to keep the narrative moving along. As the show concluded, Selorm Adonu received a well-deserved standing ovation.
As Mason’s mother emphasises at one point, “What is legal isn’t always right and what is illegal isn’t always wrong.” We are not encouraged to break the law, but to have more conversations about how such situations continue to happen in real life. Overall Please Do Not Touch offers a thought-provoking, bold message that lingers long after the show finishes.