The Lonely Londoners

London will do for you for now... And I will do for London.

London, 1956. Newly arrived from Trinidad, Henry ’Sir Galahad’ Oliver is impatient to start his new life. Carrying just pyjamas and a toothbrush, he bursts through Moses Aloetta’s door only to find Moses and his friends already deflated by city life. Will the London fog dampen Galahad’s dreams? Or will these Lonely Londoners make a home in a city that sees them as a threat?

In the first stage adaptation of Sam Selvon’s iconic novel about the Windrush Generation, Roy Williams sweeps us back in time to shine a new light on London, friendship, and what we call home.

This edition of The Lonely Londoners is published to coincide with the world premiere at London’s Jermyn Street Theatre in February 2024.

Samuel Selvon (1923-1994) was a Trinidad-born writer who moved to London, England in the 1950s. His 1956 novel The Lonely Londoners is groundbreaking in its use of creolised English, or ＂nation language＂, for narrative as well as dialogue. Selvon was awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships (in 1955 and 1968), an honorary doctorate from Warwick University in 1989, and in 1985 the honorary degree of DLitt by the University of the West Indies. In 1969 he was awarded the Trinidad & Tobago Hummingbird Medal Gold for Literature, and in 1994 he was (posthumously) given another national award, the Chaconia Medal Gold for Literature. In 2012 he was honoured with a NALIS Lifetime Achievement Literary Award for his contributions to Trinidad and Tobago’s literature.

Roy Williams, OBE, worked as an actor before turning to writing full-time in 1990. He graduated from Rose Bruford in 1995 with a first class BA Hons degree in Writing. The No Boys Cricket Club (Theatre Royal, Stratford East, 1996) won him nominations for the TAPS Writer of the Year Award 1996 and for New Writer of the Year Award 1996 by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain. He was the first recipient of the Alfred Fagon Award 1997 for Starstruck (Tricycle Theatre, London, 1998), which also won the 31st John Whiting Award and the EMMA Award 1999. Lift Off (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 1999) was the joint winner of the George Devine Award 2000. His other theatre credits include Clubland (Royal Court, 2001), for which Roy won the Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award for the Most Promising Playwright; Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads (National Theatre, 2002, 2004); Sucker Punch (Royal Court, 2010). He was awarded the OBE for Services to Drama in the 2008 Birthday Honours List.