The current scandal about the British government’s treatment of the Windrush generation of first-wave Caribbean immigrants cannot help but form a topical background to actor Natasha Gordon’s first play as a writer. Matters of citizenship have nothing to do with the play, but considerations pervade it of how British or Jamaican various members of recently deceased Gloria’s family are. Her elderly cousins, middle-aged children and twentysomething granddaughter seldom expatiate upon the subject, but consistently embody it.

The play takes place over the mourning period for Gloria, culminating on the ninth night after her death in an extravagant wake to see her spirit off. Roy Alexander Weise’s cast pull together beautifully whilst also delineating their distinct personalities. Cecilia Noble effortlessly steals scenes as Aunt Maggie, trying to control every aspect of the event; at the suggestion that Gloria might have wanted to be cremated, Maggie pronounces papally, “We don’ cook our people!” The principal focus, however, is daughter Lorraine, with Franc Ashman keeping her under control, but sometimes only just, until the final night.

The question of identity concerns family even more than nationality. When half-sister Trudy arrives, she brings with her the psychological baggage of having been left as a child in Jamaica when Gloria came to London, bore and raised Lorraine and Robert and left the family sundered. Meanwhile Robert has a portfolio of issues of his own: ambivalence about fathering a mixed-race child, erratically successful property dealings and absent-father resentments. None of these are resolved. This may be deliberate on writer Gordon’s part, to indicate that things are never neatly tied up in such situations; nevertheless, it feels untidy to have gone to the effort of introducing and developing all these strands only to leave them dangling in favour of a confrontation with a character – Trudy – who doesn’t even appear until two-thirds of the way through the 110 minutes of action.

Those loose ends are the only serious reservation about a play that shows intelligence, articulacy and dramaturgical savvy on Gordon’s part and is given a fluid and enjoyable production by Weise and the cast of seven.

Written for the Financial Times.