I never imagined theatre would become my home. Growing up as a Black queer boy from the ends, I didn’t see people like me on stage or if I did, their stories weren’t told in full colour. Most of the time, we were erased or flattened into stereotypes. My journey into the industry has been anything but conventional, but that’s exactly what makes me want to stay. I want to disrupt, to carve out space, and to tell the stories that I needed to see when I was younger.
Many people know me from the West End show For Black Boys. It was a career-defining moment, yes, but also something deeper a chance to stand on stage and be seen, fully, in all the mess and beauty of Black masculinity. But beyond that spotlight lies a much more complex reality: navigating the industry as a Black queer actor and writer comes with a constant balancing act of visibility and invisibility. Too often, we’re only invited into rooms when our identity can be commodified, but rarely when it’s about our humanity. What most don’t know is how dyslexia has shaped my journey. For a long time, I thought it was a barrier, a weakness that made me “less than” in a world obsessed with traditional markers of talent and intelligence. But over time, I’ve come to see it as my greatest creative tool. Dyslexia forces me to think differently about structure, rhythm, and words themselves. For me, storytelling is not about fitting into conventional boxes it’s about bending them until they finally fit the truth of who we are. As a Black queer writer, that truth is complicated. It carries the weight of invisibility and erasure, but also the joy of resilience and chosen family. It means making work that is unapologetic, even when the world tells you to shrink. My writing has always been about giving voice to the silenced, whether in a magazine piece, a monologue, or a play.
This November, I bring that mission to the stage with my new play, Limp Wrist and the Iron Fist, at Brixton House (6–29 November). The play is a raw and unflinching exploration of a Black queer friendship group on the brink of collapse. At its heart is a protagonist who is willing to risk everything love, community, even his own peace, despite knowing the pain that lies ahead. His struggle is rooted in the collision of his Blackness and queerness, two identities that the world often pits against each other. That tension becomes the haunting refrain of the play, echoing the struggles many of us face when trying to hold all parts of ourselves without compromise. The themes are heavy trauma, resilience, and community but they are also necessary. Black queer lives are rarely portrayed with honesty and complexity on UK stages. Too often, we are left with one-dimensional caricatures. This play refuses that. It asks difficult questions: How do we carry generational wounds while still building spaces of joy? How do we love ourselves when the world insists, we are unlovable? And perhaps most importantly how do we stay when running away feels easier? These questions are not just abstract themes for me; they are lived experience. As someone who has had to navigate both the exhilarating and the exhausting parts of being a Black queer creative, I know how heavy it can feel to carry both pride and pain in the same body. The theatre, for me, has always been a place to put that weight down to unpack it, to share it, and to transform it into something that can heal, not just for me but for the audience watching.
When I think about resilience, I think about my peers and collaborators the people who show up even when the odds are stacked against them. I think about community, about the way Black queer people hold each other up when institutions fail us. That energy is what I want audiences to feel when they come to Brixton House. Not just the ache of our struggles, but the fire of our survival.
I believe now, more than ever, Black queer voices need to be centred not only in LGBTQIA+ media, but in wider cultural conversations. Representation isn’t enough if it stops at visibility. We need space to tell our own stories, on our own terms, with all the nuance and contradictions that make us human. That is what my work is about, and that is what this play is about. My journey has shown me that the industry still has a long way to go in terms of inclusivity, but I also know the power of persistence. Every time I step onto a stage or put pen to paper, I’m reminded that being here at all is an act of defiance. And I hope that by telling these stories, someone else who feels unseen will know that they, too, belong.
This is not just my play. It is not just my story. It is a reflection of a community that refuses to disappear, a reminder that even in the face of trauma, we find resilience. And in resilience, we find each other. So when the lights turn on at Brixton House this November, and the first words are spoken, I hope audiences leave not just entertained but moved to see Black queer lives in a new way whole, complicated, and unashamedly present.
Because our voices matter. Our stories matter. And we are only just beginning.
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Book Tickets to Limp Wrist & The Iron Fist at Brixton House Theatre here
Words: Emmanuel Akwafo
Photography: Lucian Koncz
Poster: Rich Lakos