Theatre Review: Queens of Sheba, Soho Theatre

Image Credit: Eddie Osei

★★★★★

Queens of Sheba is like group therapy for the Black women in the audience, and an educational workshop for everyone else.

The perfect balance of comedy and emotion, fun and frustration, Queens of Sheba manages in an hour to truly capture what it feels to exist as a Black woman. Micro aggressions and macro aggression, joy, music and sisterhood, ostracism and oppression. It is beauty and pain, power and fragility. It makes you feel seen, and understood if you live it, it makes you see and understand if you don’t.

The original book is written by spoken word artist Jessica L. Hagan, and it’s adapted for stage by Ryan Calais Cameron. If you’ve seen any of Ryan‘s other work, his presence in this production is unmistakable, Queens of Sheba feeling like a sister piece to his work “For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy.” Jessica and Ryan together have created what feels like an hour long poetry jam.

Interspersed with the songs of the Black women we all know, Aretha, Tina, Diana, Ella, you leave feeling refreshed and revived, like you’ve spent an evening with your girls, that’s ended with a breakthrough. Where are we from? A mix of racism and sexism. We inhale hate, we exhale magic.

Queens of Sheba is on at Soho Theatre, London, until February 26th 2022. Tickets from £17.