Synopsis

A harsh fluorescent bulb flickers, casting long shadows across a sparse interrogation room as the distant sounds of election night celebrations filter through the walls.

Leon Delroy, a young Black man with weary eyes and clenched fists, sits alone at a metal table. The door bursts open as two white officers swagger in, their faces twisted with a toxic mixture of authority and prejudice. As the night wears on, the room becomes a pressure cooker of racial tension and psychological warfare. Leon, mourning the tragic loss of his wife, now finds himself ensnared in a web of baseless accusations and thinly veiled threats.

Barrie Keeffe’s Sus is a searing indictment of institutional racism in Thatcher’s Britain. Through the relentless back-and-forth between Leon and his tormentors, Keeffe exposes the insidious nature of the “sus laws” that gave police sweeping powers to detain suspects based on mere suspicion. The play’s claustrophobic setting and real-time structure ratchet up the tension, forcing the audience to confront uncomfortable truths about power, prejudice, and the presumption of innocence. As the new Conservative government takes shape outside, Sus offers a chilling reminder that true justice remains elusive for many within the system’s walls.