Of the three plays in the trilogy, this one is by far the weakest; and on all counts actually: plot, staging and acting.

There is good physicality to both actresses. Especially Carly does the dialogues with herself exceptionally well. The speed with which she talks, however, coupled with poor annunciations, meant that I struggled to follow much of what was being said. I get it that this represents the character’s style, but I found the text simply not accessible. I sat there reminiscing of Indira Varma and Ralph Fiennes in Macbeth, where the Shakespearean English flowed so smoothly, even my 11 year old had no issues following the script.

Denise might be less physical in her performance, but is much easier to follow. She is however unable to maintain her Jamaican accent and keeps falling in an out of it and the most inopportune moments. This is most stark in the conversation between her and her two friends which becomes extremely confusing and difficult to follow – the characters blur into one and it is unclear which one is saying what exactly.

But maybe I could overlook all of this, were it not for the constant screaming and swearing. It felt that 80% of the play was shouted out, and between Carly’s swallowed, barely discernible lines, only the vulgarities seem to come out crisp and clear. When dialogues are revved up this high all the time, when emotions are this exaggerated, there is nowhere left to build up to. And instead of mounting tension, there is a mounting headache to contend with. About an hour into the performance I started checking my watch, counting down the minutes to salvation.

Then there is staging – what I really liked about the previous two installments was the innovative use of props. Here, a couple of props were added on in what seems almost as an afterthought. Furthermore, this time the stage ass ‘cluttered’ with the flower store and the patty place, undoing the simplicity of the other two plays. Instead of props, there was more use of light and sound, And whilst the light was really good, most of the sound effects were a distraction which compounded the problems I had understanding the the words coming out of Carly’s mouth. The football match, the hen party chatter – the headache is intensifying.

And then last but not least is the plot. A plot that is just not at all cohesive and extremely one-sided. The older, larger black woman yelling down at the tiny working-class white girl, calling her out for being a racist, seemingly oblivious that most of the things she is condemning her for, her and her friends are equally as guilty of.

• You do not know my son, Denise says (because he is black and Carly is not); yet she herself knows nothing of the sadness Delroy feels about his fathers premature death.
• There were no black people at your hen party/christening/etc. Denise accuses; yet she does not remember that Carly was equally the only white person the at the cousin’s wedding.
• You need to learn about what it means to be Black now that you have a black daughter, Denise preaches; surely she should equally learn what life in Carly’s shoes feels like, now that she has a grand-daughter by her.
• You do not understand the soul-destroying impact of the assumptions people make on seeing a black person, Denise lectures Carly; yet she readily recognises the derogatory assumptions she made about Carly on the basis of her being white. She also admits that deep down inside, she is disappointed that her son is with a white woman.
• You have no idea how racists your words were, she castigates Carly for her drunken ‘How to keep a black man’ speech, but she does very little herself to stop her two best friends from making racist remarks about her daughter-in-law.

It feels to me that in an attempt to tell anyone white watching the play that they have to be anti-racists, the authors did not quite realise that their back protagonist is really the one who should be “doing the work.”

But I must say that the bit of the plot I found most incredulous, is the story of the business venture failing. There is some COVID anti-vax comment thrown in for good measure, but ultimately Carly’s racist comments are what is to blame. The script indicates there was not exactly a queue of people lining up for the patties to begin with, but this unknown shop went under because of social media cancel culture campaign. A campaign instigated by none others than Denise’s best friends. Friends so angry at Denise for having a son dating a white woman, that they actively chose to blame her for Carly’s action and directed their energy at destroying Denise’s dreams that she had pumped her life’s savings into. Her own black community was her undoing.

I spent a lot of time reflecting whether this hypocrisy was intentional. The entire trilogy, however, seems to be focussed on exposing white people’s racism towards Blacks. So it seems to me that exposing Denise and her friends as racists was not the intention.

But not only is Denise the racists, she also seems to be completely devoid of any compassion for Carly. Carly is a young mother, with a partner who (at least last time we saw him) was unemployed, wearing an ankle tag and clearly in need of anger management courses. She just had a baby and her source of income is gone. Her partner is mostly concerned about his own feelings (yet again, ring a bell from the ‘Delroy’ episode) and is not supporting her through her troubles.

To any caring person, Carly’s social media apology rant would be a clear indication that she is struggling and on the verge of a mental breakdown. She isn’t coping, and who can blame her? She upset many people and was labelled a racist, and is now being told by her mother-in-law that the fact she loves a black man is de facto proof of her racism. Penance and exoneration are out of the question. Denise – an older woman who has faced many struggles in life, a doting grandmother, a caring mother – Denise could never be this intentionally cruel to Carly. It is simply not credible.

The more I think about it, the more it is clear that this is a play written by two men, who really do not know how to write women and who have ended up writing a pastiche of women instead.

My headache is now a migraine.