Four Hundred Pounds

Synopsis

Bees and Tecee are two Black immigrant friends in England who used to work together as a mechanic and race car driver until they were fired. They now spend their days gambling on pool in a dilapidated building taken over by squatters. When Tecee intentionally fails to sink the black ball to win £400, Bees becomes irate, demanding an explanation. Tecee reveals he has found religion and no longer wants to gamble, instead wishing to pursue education to become an architect. This sends Bees into an existential crisis, as he sees pool and gambling as their only options for making money in a racist society that has deprived them of other opportunities. Their confrontation escalates until they nearly come to blows over their diverging paths.

The play provides a piercing look at the systemic oppression and limited prospects facing Black immigrants in 1970s England through the dramatized existential struggle between two friends. With its rich patois dialogue, the play gives voice to the bicultural experience of trying to thrive while caught between two worlds – the traditions of their Jamaican homeland and the harsh realities of their adopted country. Themes of poverty, masculinity, economic disenfranchisement, racism, religious faith, generational divides and the eternal human yearning for purpose are explored with nuance and poetic authenticity.