Kit Harington has defended his new play for hosting dedicated performances for Black audiences . Slave Play , now running at the Noel Coward Theatre in London’s West End, attracted controversy earlier this year when it was announced there would be two Black Out nights during the show’s 12-week run . The initiative is aimed at welcoming an “all-Black-identifying audience” that is “free from the white gaze”.
A spokesperson for Rishi Sunak , who was prime minister at the time, described the initiative as “wrong and divisive” . Harington, however, who stars in the play alongside Olivia Washington, Fisayo Akinade, and Aaron Heffernan, said of the initiative: “I’ve come to realise or believe that it’s an incredibly positive thing.” The Game of Thrones actor told BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that the first Black Out performance took place earlier this month and was an “incredible show”.
“Number one, if you are white, no one’s stopping you buying a ticket, it’s not illegal to buy a ticket for that show, if you want to come,” he said. “It’s saying, ‘We would prefer the audience to be this.’ “Number two, I’ve been going to the theatre since I was young with my mum.
I’ve only ever really known predominantly white audiences. It is still a particularly white space. “So to have the argument that, oh, this is discriminating against white people is, I think, vaguely strange and ridiculous.
” Only seven per cent of audiences at arts council-fun.