Olisa Odele and Jordan Kouamé lead the cast of There’s Something About Adam Black, the first play by Troy Hunter, which opens at the Yard Theatre in Hackney Wick on 13 January 2027.
The Yard has found its Adam. Olisa Odele, whose screen work includes Big Boys and It’s a Sin, takes the title role in There’s Something About Adam Black, and Jordan Kouamé, seen in ITV’s Malpractice, plays Daniel. The run is 13 January to 20 February 2027, and tickets are on sale now.
It is the first play by Troy Hunter, a familiar face from Sex Education. Tatenda Shamiso directs, with credits that include Eat the Rich (but maybe not me mates x), Blood of my Blood and Choir Boy.
Adam moves through dating-app matches at speed and wants nothing resembling a relationship. Then Daniel arrives: a poetry-writing Yorkshireman with no idea what he has walked into. And a past that Adam has kept at a distance stops keeping its distance. The Yard is billing it as a comedy.
Hunter said: “There’s Something About Adam Black is a story about a young gay black man navigating love for the first time in a world full of distractions. Adam’s been in my head for years; and when I began writing I realised I had never seen a character like him on stage - Adam is the character I wanted to see growing up.”
Odele meant only to skim the script before the audition. It did not go that way: “Instead, I ended up on my feet for an hour and a half giving a full performance in my best friend's living room. This is a special play with a wonderful team who get it.”
Shamiso said: “I cannot wait to bring Troy's work to life with a cast that perfectly matches the play's vibrancy, hilarity, seduction, nuance and tenderness the way this company does.”
On stage, Odele’s credits include Fat Ham for the RSC, The Hot Wing King at the National Theatre and the UK tour of Crongton Knights. Kouamé’s include Richard II at the Bridge Theatre, The Mirror and the Light for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Common at the National Theatre, with Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, Dope Girls and Neuromancer among the screen work.
Aldo Vázquez designs the set and costumes, with lighting by Nao Nagai, sound by XANA and movement direction by Malik Nashad Sharpe. Casting is by Arthur Carrington, and Samantha Adams is the production’s dramatherapist.
The casting arrived in the same announcement as the Yard’s first musical, Stephen Sondheim’s Company directed by Jay Miller, which we covered earlier today. There’s Something About Adam Black is part of the season that opens the Yard’s new purpose-built home in Hackney Wick, which this week also released rehearsal images of Ian McKellen in Lear.
Performances run at the Yard Theatre, Queen’s Yard, Hackney Wick, from 13 January to 20 February 2027. There is a captioned performance on Thursday 11 February 2027 and a BSL-interpreted performance on Thursday 18 February 2027, and anyone aged 27 or under can buy £5 tickets on the door through the Yard’s No Empty Seats scheme.
For more information, visit the official website.
