Afterlives of empire in contemporary Black British women’s plays: Janice Okoh’s The Gift (2020)

Sarah Forbes Bonetta was an orphaned Yoruba girl who was enslaved by the King of Dahomey and then offered as a “gift” to Captain Frederick Forbes of the British Royal Navy in 1850. She was sent to England and eventually became Queen Victoria’s goddaughter. This article focuses on The Gift (2020), a play by British Nigerian playwright Janice Okoh which draws on Bonetta’s life. By means of a complex dramaturgical structure that uses multiple and colliding time frames, Okoh juxtaposes Black people’s past and present experiences of Britain. In her intellectual engagement with a neglected history and with the elusive figure of Bonetta, the playwright delves into themes such as cultural appropriation, the denial of Black identity, and the impact of imperialism on Black British lives today, confronting attitudes to race in both imperial and contemporary Britain.