Theatre review: Wolves on Road

Following Beru Tessema's well-received House of Ife, the playwright returns to the Bush for another story with family at its heart, but this time also taking in much wider social and financial themes, as Wolves on Road dips its toe into cryptocurrency - and suggests that's probably as deep into that particular world it's safe to get into. Manny (Kieran Taylor-Ford) is looking to get rich quick, but so far his instincts to resell designer goods online have just resulted in him being saddled with a pile of fakes even the local market stalls won't take off him. His best friend Abs (Hassan Najib) gets him into a crypto app, and after his initial reservations Manny gets sucked into the seemingly limitless possibilities for growth. But the big money will come if they can get in on a new currency at the start, and a local boy done good has come up with a new app that combines crypto with a money transfer service.

The 21-year-old Manny has a slightly fractious relationship with his mother Fevan (Alma Eno,) who's always dreamed of opening her own Afro-European fusion restaurant, but is determined to raise the capital through the traditional routes that have been turning her down all her life.

The dynamic is completed by Fevan's boyfriend Markos (Ery Nzaramba,) an Ethiopian bus driver who's spent the last decade saving up to help his own son, who's currently on a dangerous flight though Africa and the Middle East. Nzaramba makes the affable, low-key Markos a scene-stealer, and while the sometimes abrasive and tempestuous Manny gets away with a lot through likeability, it's him disrespecting Markos that causes a sudden audience shift against him.

With a lot of hopes, excitement, and especially money, their own and the community's, being put into the app, it's not particularly hard to see where the plot is going to go, but Daniel Bailey's production plays the family scenes as a comedy-drama and the financial gambling as a thriller, keeping you invested enough in the characters and their relationships that you will them to beat the system.

The role of Devlin, the snake-oil salesman who uses emotive language about Windrush and historic financial inequalities faced by black communities to get the life savings out of those very communities, is essentially a flashy cameo, so the show is using a series of guest stars for a fortnight each. Jamael Westman is currently doing the honours, and tonight had to lay on the charm extra thick as Gino Ricardo Green's projections broke down just before the interval, so he had to convey the heartstring-tugging visuals we were meant to be seeing as well.

As with his last play here, Tessema's subject matter could have resulted in a grim and depressing evening but he gives the dialogue and characters the spark needed to make it as entertaining as it is cautionary. And he manages to end on an optimistic note as well - if these dreams about what community can achieve can be used to rip people off, maybe someone using that same enthusiasm with the right intentions can make them a reality.

Wolves on Road by Beru Tessema is booking until the 21st of December at the Bush Theatre's Holloway.

Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Helen Murray.