Last Updated on April 3, 2026
In The Authenticator, the act of proving what is real becomes inseparable from uncovering what has been deliberately hidden
3.8 out of 5.0 starsSome years ago, I travelled to Antigua to cover Sailing Week, an extravagant festival held every year at the end of the Caribbean sailing season with exclusive champagne parties, mega-yachts with professional crew and massive events looking out from Shirley Heights to English Harbour. In complete contrast to that was a visit to Betty’s Hope sugar plantation. The Authenticator, set in the fictional Harford House, seemed a parallel experience, contrasting the opulence of the landed gentry with that of descendants of the enslaved people who built fortunes for the plantation owners. For me, a white girl with a nice middle-class upbringing, there was a moment of shocked realisation on Betty’s Hope sugar plantation when we were shown the slave records. In the brilliance of the Caribbean sunshine, those scraps of paper with perfect copperplate writing were lists with the age, sex, weight and (only sometimes) first names of the enslaved people – hundreds of them. In The Authenticator, estate records from Henry Herford’s plantation in Jamaica are found in the basement of Harford House, perfectly preserved – and ready for The Authenticator.
When Abi (Rakie Ayola) and Marva (Cherrelle Skeete) arrive at Harford House, they are greeted by Fen (Sylvestra le Touzel), who has inherited the house from her twin brother Henry. A direct descendant of the first Henry Herford, Fen explains that she has been exploring and sorting through the house’s goods and chattels. It’s early in the Authenticator when a neat, almost clinical discussion about ancestry starts to be challenged by moments of doubt, by history and by something more emotional creeping in at the edges.
As the story unfolds, The Authenticator digs into questions of identity, race and ownership of the past. Who gets to claim history? How much of who we are is inherited, and how much is constructed? How valid is word of mouth? These are the questions this production raises. Just a little uncomfortable and sharp, but essential for everyone: to understand our heritage.
Tonally, however, the script swings between comedy, psychological drama and something closer to gothic farce. One minute, there’s a biting exchange that lands with real precision; the next, a broader comic beat that feels like it belongs in a different play entirely. And those changes in tone make it challenging to focus on the main issues. Pinnock’s writing is brilliant, witty and perceptive throughout, but the stylistic swings create their own incongruity.
Brilliant set design from Jon Bausor certainly helps, though. Staged in the round, what appears at first to be an achingly simple staging evolves with traps, lifts, and simple props, so that the shadow-filled house becomes a space where history lingers, reinforcing the play’s preoccupation with inheritance and buried truths.
Miranda Cromwell’s direction is more challenged: while individual moments are handled with confidence and energy, particularly in the interplay between comedy and suspense, shifts between humour, gothic unease and psychological drama are not always fully integrated, leaving scenes that jar rather than build. The result is a production that is visually compelling and thematically resonant, but not always dramatically cohesive.
For me, the three characters on stage were perfectly performed. The bubbly and endearing Marva was challenging and perceptive, and when appropriate, truly remorseful. A more reserved Abi came into her own after drinking a lot of rather good wine, revealing a tapestry of details that broadened her character. Sylvestra Le Touzel as Fen was the epitome of upper-class ‘rebellion’, with a brilliant punk alter-ego.
The Authenticator, though, seemed to prioritise ideas over people. Would the well-educated, funny and sympathetic Fen really have changed from country casuals into a white trouser suit with an African scarf because she’d found out she was 2% Ghanaian? Would she have locked the authenticators in the cellar to stop them from interrupting her speech? Wouldn’t Marva have owned up to the accidental ghost page at the beginning rather than leaving her mentor potentially to make a fool of herself?
For all the issues, The Authenticator is an ambitious, entertaining play with big ideas and is worth seeing. The main theme remains compelling. Even when it falters, it’s reaching for something ambitious, trying to fuse big, difficult ideas with an entertaining theatrical experience. That it doesn’t entirely succeed is frustrating. But that it tries at all feels, in its own way, worthwhile.
This isn’t a neat or fully satisfying piece of theatre. It is, however, an interesting one and for a show that runs for an hour and a half, that’s enough.
The Authenticator runs from 2 April to 9th May 2026
The Authenticator
Dorfman
National Theatre,
South Bank,
London SE1 9PX
Looking for something different? We recommend Les Liaisons Dangereuses, currently showing at the Lyttelton, National Theatre
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