King Hamlin, Park Theatre, stage review: ‘Is there any coming back from social division?’
Harris Cain (centre) and Andrew Evans (left) impress. Photograph: Steve Gregson
By the time they reach 18, London children have layers of inequality baked into them.
The capital may have some of the best schools in the country, but the opportunities generated by education seem just out of reach to many launching out on their own.
Gloria Williams’s new play King Hamlin, currently running at Park Theatre, explores the choices available to young men in North London’s less well-off estates.
We see how in addition to differentials conferred by class, race and neighbourhood, the current era of home working has made digital exclusion a further barrier to upward mobility.
Hamlin King is a studious and tender mixed-race teen aiming to be a software engineer. But a series of unsuccessful job interviews drain away his hopes and leave him vulnerable to the temptations of the easy money he sees his friends Quinn and Nic pulling in through drug-dealing.
Though social forces are never far from the surface of this drama, its most nuanced insight is the effect of criminality on the personalities of those it touches.
Lead actor Harris Cain draws on an impressive emotional range to depict Hamlin’s descent from aspiration into despair and rage.
It is at this point that he is able to connect with Nic, played with mesmerising brilliance by Andrew Evans as a tightly-wound gangster radiating sociopathic anger.
The question we’re left with is whether there is any coming back from social division and all its consequences.
King Hamlin may not provide answers, but it certainly gives us something to ponder.
King Hamlin runs until 12 November at Park Theatre, Clifton Terrace, Finsbury Park, N4 3JP.