ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the plays Girls by Theresa Ikoko and Liberian Girl by Diana Nneka Atuona. The main objective of this chapter is to test the limitations of solidarity when it is mobilised from the West. By drawing on Lilie Chouliaraki’s study on spectatorship and the limitations of forms of ironic solidarity, the chapter focuses on the portrayal of female horizontal bonding, friendship and agency as key mechanisms through which more solidary relations can be established with respect to issues that affect Black women on the African continent. The first part of the chapter offers an introduction in which I discuss the central focus of the African continent and the thematics related to it in contemporary Black British plays. The following section then delves into the theoretical approach of the chapter by discussing the concepts of ironic solidarity, the narratives of pity that prevail in humanitarian campaigns in connection to the concept of solidarity, Matt Utas’s concept of victimcy and Butler’s ideas around grievability. The chapter then continues with the analysis of the plays. In terms of the form this takes, it examines the strategies of direct interpellation of audience members and the use of immersive theatre as mechanisms of ethical solicitation.
