“Once they’ve been here long enough, they’re no longer squatters. Then they’re simply... Neighbours.”
In the quaint suburban community of Stillwater, a mysterious shack springs up from the dust with the inhabitants nowhere to be seen.
As speculation abounds, new residents Sihle and Bonolo are recruited by their neighbourhood to be the face of a campaign to demolish the shack in this biting satire of community politics.
A Good House is a thrilling and comedic new work, from writer Amy Jephta, about a couple who discover the limits of good neighbourliness and what is required to fit in.
Directed by Nancy Medina (Trouble in Mind, National Theatre), A Good House is a co-production with Bristol Old Vic in association with The Market Theatre, Johannesburg.
A Good House was originally co-commissioned by the Royal Court Theatre with the Fugard Theatre, South Africa.
__Assisted Performances__
Chilled performance: Saturday 1st Feb 1:30pm
Captioned performance: Tuesday 2nd Feb 7:30pm (familiarization tour at 7pm)
Audio-Described performance: Saturday 8th February 1:30pm (touch tour at 12pm)
Amy Jephta’s play A Good House is a worthy exploration of prejudice and privilege. There’s even a state-of-the-nation essence to its depiction of characters who complain how race, class or wealth is holding them back, while being unable to acknowledge which corner of this triangle offers them advantages. But while spiky exchanges thinly veiled as neighbourliness air these uncomfortable truths, it feels unfocused, as if unsure whether it wants to be a play about racism or capitalism. And while both ‘isms’ are addressed, it doesn’t peer under the bonnet of either of them thoroughly enough.
This is the first performance of the play, and Amy Jephta’s writing is startling. It’s a fast-paced script which has you laughing one minute and shrinking into your seat in uncomfortable horror the next. The racism, and Sihle and Bonolo’s differing reactions to it, are hard to witness. On reading the play text afterwards I see that the Zulu words Sihle speaks in the last few minutes translate as “Remember to be invisible and move slowly so you don’t wake them. Sometimes it is best not to wake them; few things in the world are as dangerous as sleepwalkers.” I didn’t need to understand the words as they were performed to grasp their meaning.
2025 | West End |
West End |
Videos