English Kings Killing Foreigners | Soho Theatre

English Kings Killing Foreigners, a slick two-hander, challenges its audiences from the get-go. Before the play-within-a-play begins, its two leads bound onstage, leading the audience in a game of MadLibs before demanding that they decide who will play the king and who will play the foreigner.

Writers and performers Nina Bowers and Philip Arditti have drawn on their experiences in the Shakespeare’s Globe ensemble to create this deconstruction of Shakespeare’s Henry V, drawing on themes of cultural identity, nationalism, and what it means to be a foreigner in today’s Britain. The show is currently playing at Soho Theatre following a critically-acclaimed run at the Camden People’s Theatre.

The play follows fictionalised versions of Bowers and Arditti, with the characters of Nina and Philip first meeting when they are locked out of a rehearsal room ahead of a production of Henry V, set to be reimagined as a futuristic retelling of the Second World War set in a kebab shop full of English flags. 

Arditti’s Philip is a veteran actor who went to RADA with the play’s lead (and purports to be on first name terms with him) and has an encyclopedic knowledge of former performances of Henry V, while Bowers’ Nina, playing Soldier 3, doesn’t even think she likes Shakespeare all that much. But when the lead dies unexpectedly, it is Nina who is thrust into the spotlight by taking on the role of Henry V. 

As Philip helps Nina prepare, the play opens up questions of how their cultural backgrounds, and experiences of otherness in England as, respectively, a Turkish Jew and a queer mixed-race person, aid and hinder their relationship with the play and with England more generally. 

We are reminded that Shakespeare’s works cannot be performed in a vacuum, and that play being deconstructed, Henry V, was itself written as a propaganda piece to promote British interests, with many of its subsequent restagings serving a similar purpose.

Alex Fernandes’ lighting design and Jamie Lu’s sound design add dramatic touches to proceedings, but on the whole this is a play which relies primarily on its performers and its script in order to shine, and shine they do.

It is a powerful piece, and particularly fitting that it is being performed now, at a time where nationalism and identity politics are on the rise. Despite the important and prescient themes, it never feels preachy, with humour running throughout the piece even in some of its darkest moments.

English Kings Killing Foreigners runs at Soho Theatre until 18th October.

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★★★★☆ (4*)

Gifted tickets in return for an honest review | Photography by Harry Elletson