Once Upon a Time in Sokoto extends its tour to Keswick and Hammersmith

Once Upon a Time in Sokoto is staying on the road for longer. Fuel has extended the world premiere tour of Inua Ellams's drama, and the new dates take it to Keswick and then to London. The Lyric Hammersmith run, 13 April - 8 May 2027, went on sale at 10am today. Tickets for Theatre by the Lake, where it plays 24-27 March, go on sale on 3 November.

The London dates were first confirmed in the Lyric's own 2027 season announcement. What the producers add is the Cumbrian stop. Roy Alexander Weise directs, and the touring company is led by Adeola Yemitan as Nafisa, Antonia Layiwola as Zinari, Bayo Gbadamosi as Hadiru and Will Atiomo as Yusef.

The play won the 2024 Alfred Fagon Award. It follows an enslaved woman and the man who once owned her, and the friendship that grows between them when new enemies force them past differences of faith, culture and heritage. Behind it run the events that led to the creation of Nigeria. The tour opened at Royal & Derngate, Northampton, on 28 September, and the critics' verdicts are in our review roundup from Royal & Derngate.

Keswick is new ground for Ellams, who has never had a play staged in the Lake District. He calls Theatre by the Lake "a gorgeous setting for this story", and is just as warm about Hammersmith: "the Lyric Hammersmith is a perfect, perfect space."

Weise has not had a show on in London since 2024. "I'm buzzing to get back, to give audiences something fresh and to raise the roof with my communities," he said. "There may be tears. There will be laughter."

For Fuel the Lyric is a homecoming. Artistic director and chief executive Kate McGrath described it as "a return to the Lyric Hammersmith where we began four happy years producing the theatre's year-round programme exactly 20 years ago." Keswick, by contrast, will be the company's first visit to Theatre by the Lake.