Theatre review: The Convert

A couple of past successes will be coming back for Christopher Haydon's final season of programming at the Gate, and after the success of Eclipsed* he brings back writer Danai Gurira for an unusually long and epic play by the venue's usual standards: The Convert is set in late Victorian Rhodesia, where both Catholic and Protestant churches have made slight inroads in converting the locals. Taken from his family as a child, Chilford (Stefan Adegbola) is a devout Catholic, helping the local priest and frustrated by the fact that an old rival has been accepted to the priesthood, as he himself had hoped to be the first black African priest. He's never managed to get anyone quite as enthusiastic about the white men's religion as he is - his housekeeper Mai Tamba (Clare Perkins) goes through the motions but also performs good luck magic when he's not looking. But her niece Jekesai (Mimi Ndiweni) is a different story.

Theatre review: Liberian Girl

Martha (Juma Sharkah) is the titular 14-year-old Liberian Girl in Diana Nneka Atuona's debut play, but this isn't a fact most of the characters in the story are privy to: When her grandmother Mamie Esther (Cecilia Noble) realises a rebel army is approaching their village, she cuts Martha's hair off and makes her pretend to be a boy. As she'll soon find out, life for a girl in a war-torn state is brutal, but her new male identity won't make things easy for her either: As they try to flee to safety, Esther and Martha are accosted by child soldiers Killer (Valentine Olukoga) and Double Trouble (Michael Ajao.) Separated from her grandmother, Martha's disguise means she escapes being raped, but Frisky, as she's now nicknamed, is forced to fight on the side of Charles Taylor's rebels, in a civil war she barely understands.