The Architect review ★★★★★

What makes a fitting tribute? In 2021, The Guardian journalist Gary Younge wrote a persuasive long read arguing, in part, that statues are not effective storytellers for the people they stand to memorialise. Plays can do a good job of telling people’s stories, but this 30th-anniversary tribute to Stephen Lawrence – whose racist murder at a south-east London bus stop in 1993 was a watershed moment for race relations in the UK – does something more tasteful and less obvious than taking its audience on a journey through his life.

Conceived by Roy Williams, Mojisola Adebayo and Matthew Xia (who also directs) as An Actors Touring Company and Greenwich + Docklands International Festival co-production, The Architect is set, somewhat novelly, on a moving double-decker bus that travels from Lewisham to Woolwich. Its passengers and their fragmented stories travel through history to join us and along the way, we meet a woman about to give birth, a pair of courting lovers, and two teen boys discussing an upcoming party and the girls who might be there. An invisible Rosa Parks, in her rightful place at the front of the bus, is also briefly acknowledged.


The Architect, directed by Matthew Xia. Photo: David Levene

Is the pregnant woman (a pensive Doreene Blackstock) the soon-to-be mum of Stephen? It seems so initially, but a later conversation with her grown-up son suggests otherwise. Similarly, the young lovers in their 60s attire could be Stephen’s parents, who had immigrated to the UK from Jamaica in the 1960s, but this is never explicitly said. Less ambiguous are the tracksuit-wearing teenagers (Dalumuzi Moyo and Omar Austin, delivering an engaging, yin-yang double act), one of whom, like Stephen, is studying to become an architect, but is anxious not to leave his friend behind.

Overseeing the bus journey is a jovial conductress (Llewella Gideon, with infectious warmth), who assures us we’re in the safe space, but also sings karaoke and passes around a bag of mints, creating a fun, shared experience. Not all of those present on this bus are welcoming, though. As we’re driven through one estate, the bodiless voice of a racist man airs depressingly familiar rhetoric othering 'coloured people' as 'foreigners' trying to take over the country.


Llewella Gideon as The Conductress in The Architect. Photo: David Levene

To get around the fact that the audience are sitting on two decks of the bus, the short snippets of dialogue are performed on one deck, then the other, often with two scenes unfolding simultaneously. There’s some overspill of sound, but as the narrative is non-linear, it works. Five writers produced material for the show and their different tones and writing styles can be heard too: Williams’ The Boys and The Boys, Part 2 are the most engaging, story wise, while Bola Agbaje’s Blend In airs important grievances about the Black British experience.


The Architect, with Omar Austin and Dalumuzi Moyo as the Boys. Photo: David Levene

The show culminates off the bus in Woolwich’s General Gordon Square, where the Architect (a convincing Karl Collins) shares his vision for a more equal, and eco-friendly, world. More moving, though, is the scene that unfolds beforehand on Well Hall Road, where Stephen lost his life. On one side of the road is a candle-lit tribute, while on the other, a group of runners from the Cambridge Harriers – the athletics club Stephen belonged to – run alongside our bus. It creates the sense of being watched over and looked out for, something Stephen wasn't the night he died. As we travel onwards, it's as if a silent pact has been made between those on and off the bus to work harder to protect one another in future.

The Architect ran as part of Greenwich + Docklands International Festival.