Award-winning poet and playwright Inua Ellams (Barber Shop Chronicles, The Half-God of Rainfall) brings his audience-led poetry event to the Donmar Warehouse.

Pick a word, any word. Prompted by audience suggestions, Inua Ellams will search through his extensive archive of work and perform a reactive and spontaneous selection.

Inua Ellams’ first play, The 14th Tale, debuted at Arcola in 2010 and later transferred to the National Theatre; his Knight Watch: South S’tory was also produced here in 2012. Barber Shop Chronicles has played two sell-out runs at the National Theatre and a world tour.

Across his work, Inua mixes the old with the new: traditional African storytelling with contemporary poetry, pencil with pixel, texture with vector images, with an emphasis on themes of identity, displacement and destiny.

The show runs from 21 – 25 September 2021.

Book your tickets here 

Header Image: Inua Ellams photographed by Karen Robinson/The Observer