How to Keep Warm in Winter: Broadway Theatre, Catford – Theatre review

Olivier Award-nominated Ryan Calais Cameron and Catford’s Broadway Theatre’s ground-breaking pipeline initiative, The Ryan Calais Cameron Season, continues this month with Kaleb D’Aguilar’s How to Keep Warm in Winter. Longlisted …

Oct 18, 2026 - 15:11

How to Keep Warm in Winter: Broadway Theatre, Catford – Theatre review

Olivier Award-nominated Ryan Calais Cameron and Catford’s Broadway Theatre’s ground-breaking pipeline initiative, The Ryan Calais Cameron Season, continues this month with Kaleb D’Aguilar’s How to Keep Warm in Winter.

Longlisted for the 2025 Alfred Fagon Award, the story centres on a newlywed Jamaican couple in 70s London, the post Windrush generation, demanding more of their chosen home. It’s 1973.

Just arrived from Jamaica, Irene joins her childhood sweetheart Everton in London, sharing a tiny room in Peckham. London is on the verge of a bitter winter with Prime Minister Edward Heath’s announcement of a three-day week after the miners go out on strike.

The play opens with a wholly relatable lament for the sun from the newcomer and the inevitable disappointment with their living situation. However, both are determined to succeed in their new country, and as they recognise, ‘Peckham is a decent area.’

Kaleb says:

‘Times are changing, and we’re coming out of the Windrush Generation and entering the Rebel era of Caribbean young people unwilling to ‘just get on with it’.’

However, the seeds of discord between the two are clear from the outset. Everton is desperate to support his wife financially, even though he knows his factory job will not sustain them. Irene wants to go out immediately to find work and take her place in society.

The arrival of their landlord’s estranged and restless son, David, only further complicates matters.

The play is an affecting portrayal of a pivotal time in British history and the relationship between Everton and Irene is lovingly drawn. Kaleb’s use of humour throughout is faultlessly timed and essential to telling such an emotionally tense story.

He also creates his characters with a real sense of clarity and depth which, unfortunately, begins to feel a little rushed in the second act.

Julene Robinson is the standout performer, holding Irene’s hopes, disappointment and determination to succeed with deep empathy. Emile John does excellent work portraying the frustration and despair of a man whose reality consistently falls short of his ambition.

Dudley O’Shaughnessy is slightly out of his depth in contrast but has just enough tightly wound energy and boyish charm to carry him through.

David’s Jamaican father, the landlord, casts a long shadow throughout the play. An absent father to David and a surrogate father to Everton, his influence is even more deeply felt given that he is suffering from terminal cancer at the point their story begins.

My only regret is that we didn’t get the chance to meet him; the generational split would surely have thrown up some interesting conversations!