Last Updated on February 11, 2026
Past and present collide in a bold theatrical work inspired by the life and legacy of Miles Davis and his musical influences
4.0 out of 5.0 stars2026 marks 100 years since the birth of seminal jazz pioneer Miles Davis. For somebody considered to be one of the greatest legends of jazz music, it is surprising how little screen or stage time has been devoted to telling Davis’s story. Most famously, Don Cheadle starred in and directed the semi-fictional but acclaimed biopic Miles Ahead in 2015, and there have been a couple of excellent documentaries like Birth of the Cool (2019) and The Miles Davis Story. On stage, his story has been told even less, with Miles & Coltrane: Blue and Miles Davis and the Blue Flame Incident both relatively unknown outside jazz aficionado circles and performed in fringe venues. But the new play MILES is bucking that trend by transferring to the Southwark Playhouse (Borough) after a sold-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2025.
Miles Davis’s musical legacy and influence is immense. His music not only shaped the sound of jazz but rewired the possibilities of improvisation, collaboration and reinvention across many musical genres. His seminal album Kind of Blue redefined harmonic freedom, while Bitches Brew opened the door to a new, electronic jazz future. Davis repeatedly tore up the rulebook and wrote a new one while expanding the cultural reach of jazz, leaving behind a legacy that still inspires and influences musicians. Much of the restlessness, seeking, and urge not to stagnate, which defines his music, is also reflective of Davis’s life. And it is this potent mix of genius and volatility; innovation and self‑destruction that forms the bedrock MILES.
Written and directed by Oliver Kaderbhai, MILES at the Southwark Playhouse employs the same creative team behind the original show. The piece is realised in production company DELIRIUM’s distinctive visual style, which blends performance, projection, dance and puppeteering to craft a dreamlike journey. The Playhouse venue is very much faithful to the play’s fringe origins in that it is a tiny space with the audience seated on three sides of the actors. The front row is close enough to touch and interact with the actors – and in fact, at one point, they do. This lends an intimacy to the production and a fly-on-the-wall feeling of being drawn into the characters’ private universe. The circular set (designed by Ellie Wintour) is spare, comprising only a black grand piano and a backdrop of higgledy-piggledy wooden shutters which double as a projection surface. But combined with Alex Lewer’s lighting design and a fair amount of on-stage “cigarette smoke”, the simple set switches effortlessly between a music teacher’s studio, a smoky nightclub, or a professional recording studio.
The play opens with Davis, played by newcomer and 2025 RADA graduate Benjamin Akintuyosi, lying crumpled, shirtless and motionless on the piano. Slowly, he uncoils himself and rises up, as if Davis’s spirit is arising from the musical instrument. And with that, the séance has begun. With a flick of the lights, we find ourselves in the present-day Columbia Records’ recording studio in New York, where we meet young jazz trumpeter Jay (played by Canadian-born Jay Phelps, a renowned jazz trumpeter who has worked with the likes of Wynton Marsalis and Amy Winehouse). Jay is struggling to find his own distinctive musical voice and identity as an artist. Both inspired and daunted by Davis’s music and grappling with the question of what it takes to create a truly great piece of music, Jay is listening to the studio tapes of Davis’s Kind of Blue album to try to distil what makes the music so unique. And it is into Jay’s personal struggle with the creative process that Davis’s character steps, like an irascible chain-smoking inner voice of self-criticism made flesh.
Davis’s particular brand of creative tough love constantly challenges Jay to show him that he can do better; that there is substance to his craft. As Jay plays along to Davis’s recording tapes, trying to emulate the sound and make sense of his unexpected chord progressions, he asks in exasperation how Davis managed to find a myriad ways to improvise and change the same piece of music. “I play who I am”, Davis replies – as each experience shapes and changes the artist, so the art must change. We share in these experiences through a series of flashbacks, meeting Davis as a young boy with his music teacher; as a young man being taught to box by his father; as an artist in love in Paris; as a father; and as a philandering husband and addict. Many of the legendary jazz greats that Davis played with on Kind of Blue (think Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie) also feature prominently as Davis recounts them via anecdotes while their images are projected on the shutters at the back of the stage. Jay, for his part, refuses to accept everything Davis says as gospel and constantly challenges and interrupts his monologues. It’s a fascinating two-way street of interrogation of the creative process and touches on many of Davis’s influences – the rhythm of a boxer or a tap dancer; the complex time signatures of traditional African music. And it is only when Jay confronts his own lived experience that he stops recreating and starts creating, to find his musical identity in the final moments of the play.
With such a small stage, minimalistic set and only two players, producing a tight narrative and sufficient character differentiation in a shifting cast of characters might have been challenging – but both Phelps and Akintuyosi are well up to the task. Akintuyosi, in particular, can switch from young Miles to old Miles, or from the lovelorn artist to the debased addict, in the blink of an eye. Phelps brings a sweet innocence to his role and some excellent trumpeting. I was also impressed by how much could be achieved through minimal props and clever lighting, and I particularly liked the clever evocation of Davis’s long-suffering wife by a dress hanging inside the open top of the piano.
Inspired by Davis’s autobiography and based on extensive research and archival material, this excellent production of MILES moves fluidly through time, memory, and influence. It invites the audience into Miles Davis’s inner world to experience his music not as a piece of musical history but as a living force, just as relevant to artists today as it was 60 years ago. It illustrates perfectly how his music both transcends time, place and race – yet is also rooted in all of those things. It’s intimate theatre at its very best and will be equally absorbing to life-long Miles Davis fans as well as newcomers to the world of Miles Davis and jazz music.
Miles is running at the Southwark Playhouse Borough from 4 February until 7 March 2026 – book tickets here.
Southwark Playhouse Borough
77-85 Newington Causeway
London
SE1 6BD
Box office tel. 020 7407 0234 or e-mail boxoffice@southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
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