Rikki Beadle-Blair's new play, Bashment, has just opened at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. Pitched as a play about homophobic ragga music, it's actually much more than that and covers race, queer-bashing, music, love and hate.

Bashment is the story of Orlando and his boyfriend, wannabe-superstar MC JJ. These young white queers are delightfully in love and things couldn't be better, in fact, JJ is about to break into the big time and life is good. But things take a turn for the worse when Orlando accompanies JJ to a competition.

A misunderstanding with a group of homophobic guys - black guys (well, apart from White Fang, but he's as good as) - leads to Orlando being queer-bashed. He is so severely injured that he is brain damaged from the ordeal. His attackers, KKK (it stands for Krazy Kop Killer) and pals, get relatively light sentences and at first their queer-hating bravado extends into prison, but there comes a point where they can no longer hide from what they’ve done - and I'm not going to say any more than that!

Of the play, Beadle-Blair has said: "I wanted to do something, and I wanted to challenge my own. And that's why I wrote this play - to look for the truth, to try and do justice to our humanity."

It might be that Beadle-Blair is asking too much of humanity, or that the racists and queer-bashers aren't prepared to embrace the love just yet.

The good characters in Bashment are very, very good - sickeningly so. JJ is an angelic Beckham-a-like who stands by his man, even when his man is incontinent and brain-damaged, while Sam is the wisecracking black femme, who always has an answer for everything. But this is not a realistic play; the characters are types as it's the issues that count.

Bashment features strong ensemble performances from the cast who work with little in the way of scenery and set, yet manage to create their own believable world. The ‘bad’ characters are particularly engaging and not just because we get to see them unravel.

Beadle-Blair has given a voice to those who rationalise queer-bashing so that we all might understand what drives someone to hate. But the voice is complicated as the characters are endearing, yet their violence is not. Bashment engages with the homophobia only to smash it to smithereens later on. It's a very powerful experience.

Beadle-Blair's writing is drum-tight and his handling of sensitive issues is never preachy, although occasionally it gets a little schmaltzy. But that's amazing really, who else could make an exploration about the intricacies of race and sexual identity into a romantic comedy?

That's not to say that Bashment is facile. On the contrary, it dares to challenge and force its audience to consider the complexity of the ways that race, sexuality, life and music interact with each other.

This play is a brave choice for Stratford's Theatre Royal. Grittier than it's usual programme, Bashment holds its ground in front of an audience unafraid to show the performers exactly what they think, whether that's sniggering through the brutal attack scene or squealing at KKK's drag.

The fact that The Rex, a venue that hosts anti-gay ragga acts, is located just around the corner from the theatre and there’s a real possibility that some of the people who attend those gigs might also be in the Bashment audience makes this absolutely relevant to the community. Bring it on.

Read our interviews with Rikki Beadle-Blair and the stars of the show, Anthony Newell and Arnie Hewitt.

Bashment, by Rikki Beadle-Blair
Theatre Royal Stratford East
Gerry Raffles Square
London, E15
020 8534 0310

29 September-22 October  2005

Please Note: Bashment was first performed at the Theatre Royal from 20 May-18 June 2005. This review refers to that original production.

Give Metrosexuality another chance and get Rikki Beadle-Blair's TV series on video. Buy it online and save some money!