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Stage Review: English Kings Killing Foreigners, Soho Theatre, London

Stage Review: English Kings Killing Foreigners, a new play at the Soho Theatre, London's West End, five stars

Published Tue, 30 Sep 2025 04:34:03 -0500

Article Summary

English Kings Killing Foreigners at Soho Theatre brilliantly reimagines Shakespeare’s Henry V
Nina Bowers and Philip Arditti explore identity, race, and nationalism through sharp, engaging performances
The play intertwines humor and depth, delving into the immigrant experience in modern Britain
Stripped-back staging with powerful dialogue makes this five-star production a theatrical standout

English Kings Killing Foreigners is one way to describe Henry V by William Shakespeare. After all, it was created as a literal piece of propaganda to encourage the masses that war, and fighting for their King and for England, was A Good Thing, as 1066 And All That would have it. There is some moral equivocation if you squint, but folk rarely do. And in a time in this country when the antics flagshaggers and flagburners are at an all-time high, Henry V is the kind of play that either gets a good kicking, or dishes one out. "Now all the youth of England are on fire" indeed.

Stage Review: English Kings Killing Foreigners, Soho Theatre, London — English Kings Killing Foreigners PR shot

English Kings Killing Foreigners is also a new play, currently on at the Soho Theatre in London's West End. It describes both the play and, potentially, what it is doing to two relatively minor actors in it. It's into this maelstrom that Nina Bowers and Philip Arditti enter the story, first seemingly as themselves, engaging with the audience, as to their suitability to play The King or The Foreigner, and then as their parts, actors playing actors, both attending the rehearsal for a new production of Henry V, both with their own complex ethnic and immigrant story into the UK, and both arriving to find the stage door, very literally, blocked to them. As they discuss the revisionist Henry V being set, in part, in a future-set kebab shop emblazoned with Saint George flags ahead of a war with France. And that's where they stay for the first act of the play, on the outside, their debate over the play, their positions, the act of acting itself, giving us a very amusing Waiting For Rosencrantz And Godotstein To Be Dead. If this were all that the play was, for seventy minutes, I would have been very happy indeed. But it becomes so much more.

The demise of the national treasure actor playing Henry V sets them both up in consideration for the role, the funeral leads to their niceties becoming nastyties, and the very nature of Henry V, playing out during the current immigrant protests, and what that means for the actors themselves, internally and externally, becomes the heart of the play. It's heavy stuff, about race, identity, self-belief, self-aggrandisement, narcissism, madness and grief. All while remaining proper funny ha-ha as well as peculiar. As much as they interact with the audience, they subvert expectation, initial seeming weaknesses in their roles become strengths as the play heads to its conclusion, and I'm kicked out into the Soho night doing an awful lot of thinking. And laughing. Then cycling home on a Boris bike through the general area of Buckingham Palace, flags streamingly seemingly uncontroversially, in a new light.

They are both, in one war or another, foreigners. Nina is a Canadian-Jamaican, a relatively recent arrival to the UK. Philip is of Turkish and Jewish descent, but has been here for a much longer time and has witnessed a great deal more. Both bring expectations and experiences, and as they take on roles in the play, they start to embody the worst that it has brought out in others. Neither fits any easy stereotype, but one way or another, their experiences doing Shakespeare may be killing a part of themselves. It may still be worth it. English Kings Killing Foreigners is a stripped-back play, with very little in terms of background, props, and just the two actors, along with one example of an off-stage voice. That so much can be wrought from so little has to make this my play of the year so far. It is quite, quite extraordinary, and a complete revelation. Five stars.

English Kings Killing Foreigners, originally on at the Camden People's Theatre, is running at the Soho Theatre for the next three weeks until the 18th of October. Written and performed by Nina Bowers and Philip Arditti, from Realfake Theatre, creative producers The Project People, associate artist Emre Koyuncuoğlu, creative consultant Ellen McDougall, set and costume designer Erin Guan, sound designer Jamie Lu, lighting designer Alex Fernandes, original lighting design by Jodie Underwood, production/stage managers Lauren Lambert Moore and Eloina Haines, production assistants Nil Üzer and Ateş Toğrul, originally produced at Camden People's Theatre by Maria Cuervo.

English Kings Killign Foreigners

Review by Rich Johnston

9/10

English Kings Killing Foreigners, is a new play on at the Soho Theatre, London, that looks at Shakespeare in a very modern context, playing out against current protests and the impact it has on two actors, both seen in one way or another as foreign.

Credits

Writer/actor

Nina Bowers

Writer/actor

Philip Arditti

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