Mr Loverman
Lyttelton - National Theatre
- Opens: Thursday, 25 February 2027 -
Booking until: Saturday, 24 April 2027
Mr Loverman description
Mr Loverman follows a man who has spent sixty years keeping the most important thing about himself to himself.
Barrington Walker is a husband, a father, a grandfather and a man of standing in his Hackney community, dapper and full of charm and, by his own account, in possession of everything he could want. He is also carrying a truth he has never managed to say aloud: for six decades he has been in a secret relationship with his best friend Morris. The story moves between Antigua and modern-day London and covers what that silence has cost, and what it might take to end it.
The play is adapted from Bernardine Evaristo's 2013 novel. Evaristo went on to win the Booker Prize in 2019 for Girl, Woman, Other, and Mr Loverman has already been dramatised for television. This is its first stage adaptation, and it runs in the Lyttelton Theatre.
The adaptation is by Natasha Gordon, whose Nine Night premiered at the National Theatre in 2018 and transferred to the West End, making her the first Black British woman to have a play staged there. The director is Paulette Randall MBE, a former artistic director of Talawa Theatre Company who was an associate director of the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, and whose stage work includes Doctor Faustus.
Danny Sapani plays Barrington and Gary Beadle plays Morris. Sapani's screen work includes Black Panther and Killing Eve, and Beadle has worked widely across British stage and television.
Book tickets to follow six decades of a love that has never been said out loud.
