A West End play has come under fire after confirming it will be hosting at least two shows where only black-identifying audience members are "welcomed".
Slave Play, which is set to star the Game of Thrones actor Kit Harington is due to have two "Black Out" nights.
The play, written by Jeremy O Harris, received 12 Tony nominations in the United States and revolves around three interracial couples role-playing while on a plantation.
Black Out nights have become increasingly common in the British theatre world, with companies including Lyric Hammersmith, Theatre Royal Stratford East and the Almeida Theatre all having hosted them.
Kit Harrington stars in Slave Play, written by Jeremy O Harris
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The description of the event reads: "Black Out nights are the purposeful creation of an environment in which all-Black identifying audience can experience and discuss an event in the performing arts, film, athletic and cultural spaces - free from the white gaze."
Harris told the BBC's World at One programme: "I think that one of the things we have to remember is that people have to be radically invited to a space to know that they belong there. In most places in the West, poor people and black people have been told they do not belong inside in a theatre.
"In America, Jim Crow existed to tell them they could not sit in the same theatre as white people. For me, as someone who wants black and brown people to be in the theatre, who comes from a working class background, to want people who do not make six figures a year to know theatre is a place for them.
"There are a litany of places in all of our countries that are generally inhabited by only white people. No one is saying by inviting black audiences here you are uninvited. The idea of a Black Out night is to say this is a night where we are specifically inviting black people to fill up this space and feel safe."
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Slave Play writer Jeremy O. Harris at the Variety and Golden Globes Party
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However, the plans have been met with backlash, with some accused the nights as being "sinister."
Clacton MP Giles Watling described them as a "big mistake", saying: "Everyone, no matter their sex, race or colour should be able to access all theatre, otherwise we risk putting people into echo chambers, hearing only one side of any debate."
Damian Green, a member of the culture select committee, saying last year: "Putting on a public show and then asking people of a certain ethnicity not to come is misguided and a bit sinister."
Albie Amankona added: "Disgraceful, a British theatre banning native Brits. We should not import American style race relations to the UK. 'Black people & poor people' have never been told 'you do not belong in Theatres' Americans should keep their reverse Jim Crow crap to themselves.
Slave Play revolves around three interracial couples role-playing while on a plantation
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Black Out nights were pioneered in New York for the original 2019 production of Slave Play in an attempt to increase the diversity of theatre audiences who have historically been overwhelmingly white.
However, not all plays telling "black stories" and written by black playwrights have held Black Out nights with the critically acclaimed For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy not hosting any on its West End transfer.
