How do you break up with your best friend?

“When you’ve known someone basically your whole life,
Since you were five,
And you know all the same people,
And everyone you know knows you as one special Thing,
Sister-friends.”

Meet Lady, a determined sharp-tongued charmer who loves her best friend Gemma as much as she loves a late-night kebab. It’s Gemma’s birthday party. The two haven’t seen each other for six months.

cheeky little brown, by the Papatango Prize-winning playwright Nkenna Akunna (Some of Us Exist in the Future), is a failed night out, a musical, a show about heartbreak and queerness, taking place on a journey through the city Lady calls home.

With original songs, this coming-of-age story examines a friendship between two Black women, on diverging paths of self-love and acceptance.

Director - Chinonyerem Odimba Writer - Nkenna Akunna Designer - Aldo Vasquez Lighting Designer - Jodie Underwood Sound Designer - Esther Kehinde Ajayi Production Manager - Jo Woodcock Stage Manager - Madeleine Collins Produced by Tiata Fahodzi, Bristol Old Vic and The Belgrade Theatre, Coventry

Photography - Craig Fuller