The cast has been announced for Dilated Theatre Company’s revival of Barrie Keeffe’s SUS: joining director Paul Tomlinson in returning to the show following their 2013 production, Alexander Neal will reprise his role as Karn.
He is joined by British-Montserratian actor Stedroy Cabey as Delroy, and Fergal Coghlan (For King and Country Southwark Playhouse, The Mousetrap St Martin’s Theatre) completes the cast as Wilby.
Set on the eve of Thatcher’s landslide victory in 1979, Barrie Keeffe’s play about a young Black man detained and brutalised by the police for a crime he has no knowledge of is a powerful dramatisation of a true story. Originally staged in 1979, it shows audiences a shocking depiction of institutional racism through the eyes of Delroy, who has been brought to an East London police station on what he thinks is Sus – suspect under suspicion – the law now commonly known as Stop and Search. Unbeknownst to him, two white male police detectives are tasked with drawing a confession for an unspeakable crime, and they go about it in the most brutal of ways.
Dilated Theatre Company staged the play in 2013 at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre, and return to the show for a timely revival. It was originally staged at Theatre Royal Stratford East, and made into a film with Rafe Spall in 2010.
SUS is at Park Theatre 21 September to 15 October 2022