2020 Award

Juliet Gilkes Romero wins the Alfred Fagon Award for The Whip. The announcement was made online on Thursday, 26^th November on the National Theatre’s YouTube channel.

Chair of the Judges, Mimi Findlay says, “We cannot deny that the process of abolishing slavery was a bloody, gruesome and disgusting one. This play, brave and cutting, layered and complex, reveals the baselessness of human nature at times, and its darkest realms, as well as the gritty dysfunction of the human being in search of a better world. I expect this play, diligently and expertly written, and wonderfully dramatic, will indeed shock its audience – did this really happen? Juliet’s ability to tell this story in a way that forces us to seek out the truth of the history of this Black experience is ultimately the reason why this play stood out from the rest. She reached back into that sordid moment in history and dragged it right into today’s world, so that we could begin to finally imagine a world where our history no longer goes untold.”

Juliet Gilkes Romero says “My mission is always to unravel what has lain untold and buried for political expediency. The unknown facts about emancipation and the transatlantic slave trade deserve to be re-examined and future generations have the right to debate how Britain’s collective colonial amnesia, shapes our current cultural reality. I am honoured to be awarded the Alfred Fagon prize for this work and I look forward to continuing its powerful legacy and the quest for Black British artistic freedom.”

The Whip will receive its online premiere in December 2020. The new audio recording is commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company and directed by Kimberley Sykes.

The original stage production, which premiered in the Swan Theatre in 2019, ended unexpectedly earlier this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the temporary closure of the Royal Shakespeare Company stages in March.

The shortlist.