Brixton Stories and Happy Birthday, Mister Deka D: The Short and Happy Life of Ossic Jones
by Biyi Bandele

Two plays by one of Britain’s most prolific young black authors

“Brixton Stories”

Ossie Jones is an immigration lawyer in Brixton, London, a place full of wordmongers, preachers and prophets. One day he falls into a coma, is arrested for a crime he has not committed and is locked up in prison with a triple-lifer. Biyi Bandele’s witty and engaging play is in a world in which fantasy may, troublingly, be more real than reality.

Brixton Stories premiered at The Tricycle Theatre, London, 2001.

“Happy Birthday, Mister Deka D”

I went for a walk. I fought in a war. I took long rides on the tube. I met someone new. We had a child. She met someone new. The seasons changed. I changed with the seasons… That’s why I’m here.’ Relationships are as elusive as memory iself in this poetic and lyrical play.

Happy Birthday Mister Deka D premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in August 1999 and transferred to the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. Praise for Happy Birthday, Mister Deka D: A little miracle of stillness Independent.

A perky, quirky look at love, laughter and forgetting, Mister Deka D suggests that only when you stop avoiding the issue are you able to move on The Times