English Kings Killing Foreigners Play Review
“So we’ve been cast in a post-war English Nationalist Anti-Fascist Kebab Shop reimagining of Henry V set in the future?”!
That line sets the tone for English Kings Killing Foreigners — a bold and biting interrogation of Shakespeare’s place in British culture today. Now playing at Soho Theatre for a five-week run, the play asks: What does Shakespeare mean in 2025? To whom? And who gets to decide?
English Kings Killing Foreigners critiques the institution of Shakespearean theatre in the UK, especially its role in shaping national identity. With arts funding dwindling, many theatres lean on star-led Shakespeare productions for reliable box office success. What happens when Global Majority actors step into these roles? The play explores the politics of representation and the ongoing debate around “colour-conscious casting”.
We follow Nina and Philip, two actors cast in a high-profile production of Henry V. They bond over their shared scepticism of the Shakespearean establishment — until the sudden death of the show’s star, a White English actor reprising his Henry V for the fifth time. As the spotlight shifts, so does their relationship, growing more tense and complex. Phil is a RADA-trained Shakespeare enthusiast; Nina is a Black actor of St Lucian heritage. And it’s up to us, the audience, to decide who is king and who is foreigner.
We should have known this was coming- one of the first lines is, “Who here hates audience participation?” Sitting front row, we tried to look everywhere but at the actors. The house lights stayed up, and we were pulled into the action: filling in blanks on a white board (English blank killing blank) and even giving performance notes mid-show. It was sometimes uncomfortable, but deliberately so — a reminder that theatre can be confrontational, and that discomfort can be part of the point.
This discomfort is a key theme throughout the play. We’re reminded that Shakespeare was propaganda in his day and that Henry V has long been used to reinforce British identity, from Laurence Olivier’s wartime rendition to Kenneth Branagh’s Cold War-era revival. The “play within a play” is set in an “English anti-fascist nationalist kebab shop reimagining of the Second World War,” in a future where England invades France to save the French from themselves.
“All the youth of England are on fire,” is a particularly heavy line — one that echoes far beyond the stage. It reminds us not just of Shakespeare’s wartime rhetoric, but of the violence and unrest shaping our present. We saw the play on 22nd September, just days after London witnessed its largest far-right protest in history. That context hung heavy in the room, sharpening the play’s urgency and making its questions feel painfully immediate.
The creators, writers and stars Nina Bowers and Philip Arditti were inspired by their real-life experience of starring in several productions of Henry V including at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2019 where they first met. They play exaggerated versions of themselves- blurring the line between truth and performance in ways that are both playful and unsettling.
Staged in Soho’s intimate upstairs studio, the set is stripped back. The actors wear stark black and white. When Phil opened a duffel bag full of weapons right by our feet, it landed with real force. That pared-down aesthetic made moments like the entrance of the St George’s flag feel all the more loaded.
The play follows a traditional Shakespearean arc — prologue, three acts, epilogue — but the “play within a play” format sometimes left us confused. My friend and I found ourselves occasionally lost. Still, the questions it raises lingered long after the final scene. Can Shakespeare’s language be reclaimed? How should artists from diversity respond to his legacy? Nina speaks of her ‘stretching zone,’ a place beyond our comfort zone where art and risk happening. That’s where this 70 minute play lives.
English Kings Killing Foreigners performs from Tue 16 Sep to Sat 18 Oct 2025. Tickets from £18.
There’s also a Post-Matinee Q&A on Sat 27th September and a Touch Tour Tue on 30th September.
Website: https://sohotheatre.com/events/english-kings-killing-foreigners/
Written by Caitlin Neal
