Change into your pyjamas, grab a bag of popcorn and get ready to share your secrets. Sleepova by Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini is a safe space of erupting energy, girlhood and teenage dreams. In the security of their bedrooms four Black girls gossip, joke and slowly divulge their deepest hidden fears. There is all the clumsiness and wide-eyed excitability of the best coming-of-age dramas even if the play artificially closes things too neatly by the end.
It is 2016 and sickle cell sufferer Shan is celebrating her 16th birthday. Finally, she is about to step into adulthood and transform into her “real self”. With her friends Funmi, Elle and Rey by her side they journey through grief, romance, sickness, parental struggles and sexuality. “You can have sex now, legally,” they scream. Their contrasting experiences and personalities make their chat rupture with squabbles but their childhood bond is indestructible.
Shayde Sinclair makes a storming stage debut as the devoutly religious Elle, who has an inbuilt desire to please her parents. The biggest name in the cast is Bukky Bakray, breakout star of the 2019 film Rocks; with staggering rawness and ease, Bakray exuberantly plays Funmi who embraces her Yoruba heritage. She scores one laugh after another with her lust for Shan’s big brother Solomon. “I’d be all over him like cocoa butter,” she gushes.
But the genius of this play is its ensemble. The striking quartet (completed by Aliyah Odoffin and Amber Grappy) make us believe they have been friends for years. Directed by Jade Lewis, it has a sense of roughness, with the cast talking over each other and sometimes tripping over words, but this brings out a genuineness and likability.
The second half of the script jumps frenziedly from resolving one girl’s problems to the next. But this is an exhilarating tableau of imperfect young friendship and you leave wanting an invite to their next party.
• At the Bush theatre, London, until 8 April.
