Hang Time is unlike almost anything I have seen before, particularly within the ornate surroundings of the Royal Lyceum. Three Black men hang apparently lifeless in mid-air, an extraordinary and initially almost unbearable image which writer and director Zora Howard gradually makes us accept as normal.
Kamal Bolden’s Slim, Julian Rozzell’s Bird and Bryce Foley’s Blood simply hang around. There is something almost Beckettian in the absurdity of three dead men passing eternity through mundane conversation, discussing relationships, blues music, faith and even the weather. Slim is the antagonist, constantly needling the God-fearing Bird about whether there really is anything waiting on the other side. We discover that Slim murdered his wife’s lover, while Howard offers no corresponding explanation for why Bird and Blood ended up beside him.
Foley’s younger Blood becomes the emotional heart of the piece. He has a sweetheart but refuses to rise to Slim’s suggestions that he has been two or three-timing her. Eventually the reality of his situation overwhelms him. He wants a life and suddenly understands with devastating clarity that he no longer has one. As he struggles against the rope, the older men desperately try to calm him. It is shocking in its brutality.
Equally extraordinary are the transitions into night. Megan Culley’s sound design allows the cicadas to intensify as Charlie Oates’ superb movement direction transforms the men. Their bodies jerk into an eerie trance, eyes roll upwards, arms assume what appear to be the positions in which their hands were bound, then all life drains away.
Neal Wilkinson’s stark set makes the men appear genuinely suspended in space, while Reza Behjat’s lighting beautifully negotiates the psychological journey between night and dawn. Rick Sordelet and Sordelet Inc’s stunt direction helps make the central illusion disturbingly convincing. There is nowhere for a weak element to hide in such an exposed production, yet acting, direction, movement, set, lighting and sound are uniformly exceptional.
Dawn traditionally promises renewal. Here the birds begin singing and daylight restores only the men’s ability to speak. Another day has arrived for three men who no longer have a life in which to live it. Howard’s great achievement is making us grow accustomed to an intolerable image, then repeatedly forcing us to look at it again.
Ultimately there is no conventional resolution. The men return to the strange normality of accepting their deaths, discussing something as ordinary as the weather. Nature continues, conversation continues and another dawn will presumably come. They, however, remain hanging.
Abstract, absurd, uncompromising and brutally powerful, Hang Time leaves an image that is exceptionally difficult to shake off.
Reviewer: Greg Holstead
Reviewed: 22nd August 2026
North West End UK / Theatre Muse UK Rating:
Running time – 1hr