Last Updated on March 28, 2025
Debut play highlights Welsh role in slavery
Azuka Oforka’s incendiary debut play, The Women of Llanrumney, has enjoyed award-winning success at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff and now lights up Stratford East. If last night’s press night – punctuated with many gasps – was anything to go by, this accomplished production will resonate deeply with East London audiences. Moments of laughter were counterweighted with shock and sadness.
It feels wrong to say you’ve enjoyed The Women of Llanrumney, for the undercurrent of darkness eventually sweeps over you like a tidal wave. Initially, the interplay between the two black housemaids, Annie, played by Suzanne Packer (TV credits Brookside, Casualty) and Cerys, played by Shvorne Marks (TV credit, Endeavour), is humorous. The mistress, Elisabeth Morgan (Nia Roberts, theatre credit Hedda Gabbler), is a bumptious, energetic foil to her maid Annie. However, the lively gossip and confidences between the pair veil their power dynamic thinly.
Annie has brought her daughter Cerys, raised elsewhere, into the household as another maid but relations between them are not close. Cerys is keen to support the Jamaican rebellion, whereas Annie would sooner not rock the boat, hoping her mistress will eventually grant her freedom from slavery. The light comedy of the first half of The Women of Llanrumney makes the brutal revelations later in the story even more shocking. There were a lot of unfunny, uncomfortable details in the second half, but I struggled to keep my attention. The pathos contrasting between the lighter scenes and heavier material doesn’t feel relatable enough and at times I felt I was listening to a history book. The switch is like giggly moments from Ab Fab to suddenly being plunged into a dark abusive ITV drama.
The set for The Women of Llanrumney, by Stella-Jane Odoemelam, is dressed as an upper-class living space bedecked with period paintings, giant lush pot plants and fine furniture. We could be looking at the staging for a twentieth-century farce, with various doorways and a balcony with tumbling foliage. The latter is not for a romantic Juliette-style tryst, instead it’s the platform for one of Matthew Gravelle’s (TV credit, Broadchurch) three male antagonists, this time the young Irish Tommy Flynn, to accost and bargain with the financially-challenged mistress of the plantation.
The sound effects evoking the roaring insects of the Jamaican night were nicely effective here.
We learn that despite frivolity, Ms Morgan’s sugar plantation crops have failed and she faces destitution. Her downfall equates to Annie’s too.
Nia Roberts’ Elisabeth Morgan is the broadest character, spanning drunken hilarity to vicious nastiness. Briefly she inspires our pity, but mostly we can see straight through her that now the chips are down she can be as ruthless as her male counterparts.
Matthew Gravelle’s three characters aren’t quite different enough to each other, nor plausible. We’re meant to believe that Tommy Flynn is both comic relief – which he does well enough – but later a heartless scoundrel; and that the devoted Mr Ainsworth suddenly after years behaving that way, suddenly isn’t devoted to Ms Morgan at the point she needs him. It’s all a bit convenient. The third character, Mr Simon Taylor needs more depth, he’s just a boring bureaucrat and an unpleasant one at that.
It jars that Elisabeth is so matey in the first half, then willing to see the pregnant Cerys bridled and dragged away as a sold chattel. Given that Cerys has only arrived in the household two days earlier, do we expect – no matter how appalled we may be – for a woman of Elisabeth’s position to behave much differently?
I found Cerys/Shvorne Marks’ appeals to Annie/Suzanne Packer to support the rebellion the most convincing. But the dynamic between mother and daughter feels off, there’s a lot of detail about the back story of Cery’s father and Annie’s mother I struggled to process. Annie doesn’t seem that keen to have Cerys around so why bother bringing her to the household? Even if serving Ms Morgan five meals a day is a cushy number compared to working on the plantation, Cerys isn’t seeing it that way. Annie’s encouragement of her mistress to extract money or rescue from the various men is purely self-serving but understandable.
Given the turbulence in the mangroves, when you’ve been used to first and second breakfasts, a rough passage back to Cardiff sounds the better option even if you’re only the ladies’ maid. Instead, when the rebellion arrives, Annie defiantly indicates which side she’s on. It’s an impressive acrobatic feat, by anyone’s standards, but how she gets there – unless it’s the only option left – doesn’t stack up.
The Women of Llanrumney until 12 April
Stratford East
Gerry Raffles Square
London E15 1BN
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