Sometimes a revival of a play can be criticised because, in respect of a crucial social or political dimension, the world has moved on since it was written. In the case of Winsome Pinnock’s first full-length play, precisely the opposite is true: more than 30 years on it remains sadly relevant, and that is a flaw in our society rather than the play.

Enid, the central character, is a Jamaican immigrant more or less of the Windrush generation. As she, her teenage daughters and her contemporaries grapple with the extent to which they are or are not, should or should not feel, English, the ramifications of the 2018 UK government’s Windrush scandal and “hostile environment” policy simply cannot be left at the theatre door. Nor is this opportunistic programming on the Bush’s part: Madani Younis’s potent revival was scheduled prior to the outbreak of the current brouhaha. Opening the evening after a National Theatre revival of Brian Friel’s Translations mused with no less inadvertent topicality on Britishness and Irishness, it suggests that many of us non-Anglo-Saxon Britons will never be free of this briar-patch of national identity.

Younis gives no indication of any particular time period: the banknotes onstage are contemporary, but the music the characters play comes from 12” vinyl. Rosanna Vize’s set is principally unfussy, multi-level wooden flooring, but at crucial moments rain begins falling or the floor flooding, locating us both literally in a London colder and wetter than Jamaica and figuratively in a drizzly mire of irresolution. The performances are uniformly strong, with Seraphine Beh and Nicholle Cherrie no less assured as Enid’s daughters than Sarah Niles is as Enid herself or Wil Johnson as “uncle” Brod. There is a standout, however, and it is Adjoa Andoh as Mai, the irascible Obeah woman who is first consulted by Enid for predictions and advice, then shelters and trains daughter Del after a family bust-up. Andoh is one of those actors who give their characters the appearance of being all barriers yet paradoxically draw you in by that very “difficulty”. But not even Mai’s gift can find a way through this labyrinth, whose portrayal by Pinnock remains all too accurate.

Written for the Financial Times.