Review by Simon Jenner, October 17 2025
★★★★(★)
Rarely has such a frankly uninspiring title belied a debut play of such fizzing interest, warmth and accomplishment. Jamie Bogyo’s Safe Space premieres at Chichester Festival Minerva Theatre directed by Roy Alexander Weise till November 8. With Bogyo himself in a central role.
Educated at Yale and RADA, U.S-born Bogyo has drawn on personal knowledge to dramatize a moment in 2017 when American Ivy League universities had to finally confront their slave-steeped past. In this case, aggressive slaver John Calhoun (1782-1850), whose name was selected for a new Yale college as late as 1933. Oxford, with Cecil Rhodes, Cambridge and several museums have seen similar reckonings. It was with the toppling of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol that reckoning came of age here. The topplers were found resoundingly not guilty.
Safe Space is framed by music, solos and exquisite a capella sung mainly by three of the five young performers. It breathes through this exuberant production. It’s not a musical, though Bogyo’s starred in a couple. Nor is it autobiographical: Bogyo was at RADA at the time. But it does speak freely through a younger generation without authority figures, and without any clear opposition. Bogyo refuses the safe space as it were, of an enemy. The nearest resides in the character he portrays himself. Here Bogyo crafts in Connor a gawky enigma. There’s little reveal, save in a song, of what he really stands for, where he’s from. For one thing, he fails magnificently to be the conservative he thinks he is. For another he sings (as you’d expect) with haunting authority.
Jamie-Bogyo (Connor) Ernest Kingsley Jr (Isaiah) in Safe Space at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo Credit Helen Murray
Khadija Raza’s magnificent sliding set features an upstage room that can expand from a dorm to a luxurious pad replete with furnishings and stained-glass lancet windows. When screened the chilly outdoors with a college founder’s statue pulled on and off invisibly, is an often heated forum. Good use is made of the two Juliet balconies either side of the stage, with the Yale backdrop asserting an unruffled calm belied by everything before it.
Costumes by associate designer Maariyah Sharjil assert formal glee straight off as Isiah (Ernest Kingsley Jr) opens with a winning solo. Kingsley reveals a voice as witty as it’s burnished. Isiah then pulls off his DJ attire neatly to romp into bed with a laptop. Only to be playfully interrupted by roommate Connor (Bogyo). Fellow third-year Connor keeps asserting Isiah’s values back at him. It’s a while before havering Isiah can assert his own. It’s not because he doesn’t have a strong sense of them. But Isiah is balanced, as Connor is not, to cusp compromise with everyone: racially, personally, sexually. Politically he’s in a space where to seem to compromise is unforgiveable. Hence the title.
To Connor, Isiah’s “more conservative than me” over this founder business. To Connor’s long-term girlfriend Annabelle (Céline Buckens), who’s equally treading a minefield, Isiah may be the one true ally and empath she has. They both listen, as they’ve never heard each other before. Kingsley’s radiant shading as it were, is the heart of this play. And Buckens’ ensures Annabelle’s well-meaning white privilege is close to it, riposting with the show’s smartest whiplashes and one-liners; till she meets Stacy. But how negotiate complicated feelings? Again Bogyo refuses neat answers. Buckens’ Annabelle is a likeable pratfall of guilty good intentions.
Meanwhile Annabelle’s befriended freshman Stacy (Bola Akeju) who springs a surprise when Annabelle has been running for a position. Stacy, who comes into her own in Act Two, is drawn first as ”someone who came to win” but reveals other qualities, including warmth. Akeju’s naturally comedic but shows a steely whiplash that can melt. She’s also a fine lyrical singer.
However Annabelle, hurt by Connor (earning him a stinging sexual rebuke) finds sympathy, fails to show at a crucial moment for Stacy. Stacy’s not impressed either by Isiah’s ambivalence; or the “machismo” of fellow activist Omar (Ivan Oyik). Stacy has to find who she likes, as well as how to win. You need allies and influence. Akeju finds a surprise foil in Oyik’s Omar who Connor mistakenly calls Martin; and who peels braggadocio activism to reveal compromises and canniness born not just of scholarships, but an unexpected background.
Celine-Buckens (Annabelle) Ernest Kingsley Jr (Isaiah) in Safe Space at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo Credit Helen Murray
We don’t see a plot-point that has everyone marched in to account for themselves. But there’s another. Structurally Safe Space seems poised half-through Act Two to fade on who comes round to the renaming petition, with surprises. But there’s volatile reactions. Just when you think this two-hour 40-minute work might finish – it does pack its final 20 minutes – it upends expectations at least twice. Can this end with any kind of harmony?
Lit by Laura Howard who deploys spotlighting, Giles Thomas’ compositions and sound design (with atmospherically amplified voices and effects) feature Michael Henry’s musical direction; with Henry’s additional arrangements to the fore. For instance there’s new harmonies to the traditional melody in the second stanza of ‘Salley Gardens’ where Connor reveals an Irish identity insomuch as he reveals anything.
Not perhaps formally perfect – those switchbacks need a little room to breathe, whereas previously there’s been a drop in pace – Safe Space is a superb debut, and minor caveats can be fixed. It fizzes with theatre, singing, characters, ideas and (one might say) safety-razor dialogue. Its themes won’t fade. The cost of integrity, compromise whilst you emerge from your teens to find your own truth, is something everyone has to find. Maybe Safe Space isn’t such a bad title. And here, as with Lord of the Flies last month, Chichester proves it can attract blazing young talent who seem to need nobody else on stage at all. A season finale must-see.
Movement Director Mateus Daniel, Fight & Intimacy Director Haruka Kuroda, Casting Director Isabella Odoffin CDG
Voice & Dialect Coach Aundrea Fudge, Assistant Director Tramaine Trace, Associate Fight & Intimacy Director Jessica Hrabowsky, Production Manager Chris Boone, Costume Supervisor & Associate Designer Maariyah Sharjil, Props Supervisors Katie Balmforth.
CSM Pippa Meyer, DSM Sussan Sanii, ASM Danielle Adéyinka-Uche.
Rehearsal and Production Photo Credit Helen Murray.
Bola Akeju (Stacy), Ivan Oyik (Omar), Celine-Buckens (Annabelle) in Safe Space at Chichester Festival Theatre Photo Credit Helen Murray
