FringeReview UK 2026
The Story
National Theatre, London
Genre: Adaptation, American Theater, Contemporary, Costume, Drama, Mainstream Theatre, Theatre
Venue: National Theatre, Olivier
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
Tracey Scott Wilson’s 2003 The Story is directed at the National Theatre’s Olivier by Clint Dyer till October 24 in a headlong production now lasting just under two hours 20 minutes.
Still a powerful enthralling production. You never for a moment nod. Though you might be furrowed at the end.
Review
If poetry is news that stays news, prejudice is what refuses to fade. Combine with fiction and this mix endures. Tracey Scott Wilson’s 2003 The Story is directed at the National Theatre’s Olivier by Clint Dyer till October 24 in a headlong production now lasting just under two hours 20 minutes. Dyer proves it’s as relevant as ever. Even with a world still steeped in period telephone boxes.
The original was a finalist for the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2002, inspired by a news scandal. Dyer’s made ingenious shifts in its theatrical velocity: simultaneous scenes crackle more than ever. Scott Wilson’s already ensured characters simultaneously talk to two others at different times, for instance a detective and reporter talking to one person. The most ingenious involves a scene played out in imagination, then reality: a dinner date between two wary reporter colleagues gone hilariously wrong. However grim the story, Dyer brings out the humour and heightens Scott Wilson’s craft, twisting it to new tensions.
He also swaps out Scott Wilson’s decisions in the final scene. The original clarity is lost when a surprise ending – meant to prove how complicit the Black middle classes have become in dominant narrative. The story becomes other, and othered. Dyer’s point is clear, though occluding the story. The original surprise is even fiercer.
Anna Fleischle’s flexible set (with costumes by Natalie Pryce providing columns of colour) often comprises two wide sets of stairs, on which people strut, perch, or talk in small booths of light -Paul Anderson’s lighting is one of the stars of the show; flicking as quickly as switchback conversations to highlight time-shifts and other disjunctions. Though it clearly looks more theatrical, comms are antique, on the cusp of mobile phones the use of payphones seems ubiquitous and Dyer’s decisions to leave than in its originals setting contrasts with referring to Yvonne “graduating in ‘16” which gestures more to 2026. Lucie Pankhurst’s movement makes this kinetic, and keeps the pace Dyer’s set. It’s interrupted, though not the pace by judicious use of Gino Ricardo Green’s and Tal Yarden’s Video designs. They’re either the expected Fox News type on two screens, or more immersive and suggestive.
However Fleischle’s use of the deepest Olivier recess hold surprises and open the narrative out as a car and then fires and community riots are revealed. Dyer’s taking the full implications of the ripple effect of news and making it visceral, with Benjamin Grant’s raging soundcsape and additional music usually linked to the visuals.
When white liberal teacher Tim Dunn (Josh Goulding) and Jessica Dunn (Antonia Bernath) lose their way home in a Black neighbourhood, Tim’s attempts to head off a gunman results in his being shot fatally. Bernath continually gives out a story, and Goulding re-enacts it several times, it seems more and more hallucinatory. The death though might be the only certain thing in the Story, as Black men are continually arrested.
An old white slaver newspaper has rebranded itself by agreeing that a Black offshoot Vanguard might report culturally. But under Pat (Lorraine Toussaint) it’s become what its title proclaims. Together with ambiguous reporter Neil (Ashley Thomas) Pat runs a right crusading ship. Into this Yvonne (Letitia Wright) is inserted, partly it seems by entitled scion Jeff (Will Scolding), someone whose heritage has given him a job way beyond his callow skills-set. It’s Jeff though whom it emerges Yvonne’s having an affair. She wants to work with him in the proper News. Pat squarely puts her right: the limits of Black ambition and where hers might be. But it’s Yvonne who scoops on a twist to the shooting story. And she soon uncovers the fact that a quadrilingual schoolgirl Latisha (Aliyah Odoffin) is deeply involved, with a girl gang.
Toussaint bestrides the production with dignity an affect, giving weight and a moral centre to everyone else whose loyalties and surrender to outside pressures or ambition compromise them all in different ways. Her finest scenes are with Thomas, her protégé, and her set-speech on what the past has cost her and what she’s done about it. It’s the sot powerful speech and belongs one feels in an even more powerful play. It’s where Thomas’ ambiguities are most exposed and he gives of his best – and in the dating scene.
Toussaint’s Pat is even more ambiguous with Wright’s chafing, ambitious Yvonne. Wright is radiant, literally illuminating with fierce intelligence Yvonne’s canny dissembling and ambiguous relationship with either Black or white people. Her attempts to win Latisha’s confidence allow Odoffin both to play with this ad show a trigger-fright that ends catastrophically at the end of the first act. Even here though, huge questions remain, her very existence doubted.
Around Wright Scolding constellates, coming into his own latterly, with slippage, entitlement and genuine hurt. It’s a fascinating crumble of a performance, but never dissolving into a mere stereotype, of someone who could be labelled as simply racist.
There’s fine support from the Neil-harassed Adrienne (Unique Spencer), whose relation to Yvonne clears some understanding (along with father Granville’s voice, a curious disembodiment voiced by Everal A Walsh). Newsroom Janice (Arianne Carless),and stern Nurse Hill (Donna Augustin) slowly admitting what’s happened to Yvonne; and the recurring, often malign presence of Detective Williamson (Jay Simpson). The ensemble’s completed by Tee Arnold, Reanna Bleu, Kati Buchholz, Angelina Chudi, Linseigh Green, Roland Royal III, Matt Whitchurch.
The even slicker 2 hours 20 – shaving off 10 minutes from press night – shows how slick and powerfully Dyer’s direction has moved The Story on. The way it lands though, is confusing. You see what Dyer manages, commenting on the wider capture of Black professionals through the wide lens of community disturbance. The original end though was more shocking, and ended with a snap. His ends in an almost random manner. This is still a powerful enthralling production. You never for a moment nod. Though you might be furrowed at the end.
Intimacy Director Ingrid Mackinnon, Fight Director Kev McCurdy, Casting Directors Alastair Coomer CDG, Martin Poile CDG, Dialect Coach Hazel Holder, Voice Coach Cathleen McCarron, Associate Director Emily Aboud, Associate Set Designer Kezi Ferguson, Associate Sound Designer Nick Mann.
Associate Costume Designer Johanna Coe, Associate Lighting Designer Tom Turner, Casting Associates Oliva Laydon and Tom Shields, Staff Director Jasmine Teo.
Producer Adowa-Alexsis Minth and Kimberley Thomas, Production Manager Ben Arkell, Stage Manager Ashley J Mochan, DSM Aislinn Jackson, ASMs Ian Connopp and Jacob Martin, DSM Cover Frances O’Donnell, ASM Cover Wen-Hsin Chiang.
Deputy Production Manager Andrew Pellett, Original Wellbeing Consultant Samantha Adams.
Project Draughting Gemma Grosvenor, Digital Art Daniel Radley-Bennett, Costume Supervisor Sarah Holmes, Assistant Costume Supervisor Aimee Darby and Aurora Street, Wig, Hair & Make-Up Supervisor Philip Carson-Sheard, Running Wardrobe Supervisor Jules Burns McKenzie, Props Supervisor Chris Lake.
