Crown of Blood – Review – Sheffield Crucible Theatre
By Clare Jenkins, February 2026
At the Crucible this time last year, Sheffield-based Utopia Theatre staged Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman, exploring a clash of cultures in Yorubaland, West Africa. Now they bring Oladipo Agboluaje’s Crown of Blood – a Yoruba adaptation of Macbeth – to the same stage, combining vibrant storytelling, poetry, music, movement and elements of the Nigerian tribal culture to tell the tale of a man driven to his death by his wife’s – and subsequently his own – ambition.
In Agboluaje’s powerful retelling, equally powerfully directed by Mojisola Kareem, the tragedy takes place during Yorubaland’s 19th Century civil wars and the collapse of the Oyo Empire. Military hero General Aderemi, a blacksmith’s son, is promoted to Field Marshall as the Oracle has predicted. But his wife Oyebisi’s ambitions for her husband don’t stop there. A princess from a defeated tribe who was subsequently sold into slavery and exile, she has a burning passion to avenge her ancestors, which drives her to seek inspiration from a diviner (Tunji Falana). He predicts that Aderemi will become king, despite all cultural and traditional obstacles. So the story unfolds, on a bare stage with a magnificent raffia and wooden backdrop of pillars intricately carved with African figures.
As in Death and the King’s Horseman, Yoruba’s rich cultural heritage is very much to the fore. There’s hypnotic drumming, rhythmic chanting and movement, sometimes complex story-telling, and Kevin Jenkins’s stunning range of richly colourful costumes augmented by beads and cowry shells.
“Doomed king”
The Yoruba language is on display, too – at times challengingly for non-speakers. But as the playwright has argued, “some words are untranslatable, but can be visualised”. And, even for those not overly familiar with Macbeth, events do gradually unfurl, as disquietingly as the blood-red cloth trailed along the floor by a bent figure.
Deyemi Okanlawon and Kehinde Bankole are mesmerising as Aderemi – a good man who makes a pact with the devil – and his wife. “I’ve tried to give you the life of a queen,” he says at one point. “It’s not the same as being one,” she replies coldly. So begins his transformation from a man dedicated to service into a snarling, wild-eyed killing machine who believes “human beings are no longer of any consequence”.
The cast as a whole deliver strong, sustained performances: Toyin Oshinaike as court historian Arokin, Jude Akuwudike as Prime Minister Opaleye, irritated by the arrogant crown prince, “a miscreant of the imperial throne”; Kayefi Osha as the ancient regal matriarch; Adura Onashile as both Iyanifa and Iya Agan, head of a cult whose extravagantly costumed figures represent the spirits of dead ancestors. Patrice Naiambana, meanwhile, is stately as the doomed king, all quiet dignity and sorrow as his ghost.
“Momentous”
It’s a superbly staged production, helped by Alexandra Stafford’s atmospheric use of lighting and smoke, and Rob Hart’s disquieting soundtrack, with its low, repetitive beat.
There are also moments when comparisons to today’s global (and closer to home) turmoils emerge: momentous shifts in hereditary power, for instance. “Lineage did not save my empire and secure the reign of my house,” as the king says at one point. “It did not remove shame from my bloodline.”
Then there are the references to the power of one person to silence their critics when their overweening ambition garners huge popular support. “We must bury this episode of our history,” says Opaleye after Aderemi’s death. “That we let a man like Aderemi to get this far to the throne is a stain on all of us. See how many we are, and we let one man brutalise us and bend us to his will. It must never happen again.”
But it has, hasn’t it?
Crown of Blood is at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre until Saturday, then touring
images: Robling Photography
Clare’s dream is to live in a hotel suite, safe from the bother of boiler breakdowns and crashing computers. Thanks to her husband Stephen McClarence’s work as a national newspaper travel writer, she’s been lucky enough to stay at hotels across the UK, India and many other countries – and has loved (nearly) every minute. As a journalist herself, she was a regular contributor to Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour for over 20 years and has made features and documentaries for Radios 3 and 4. She’s also a former theatre reviewer for The Stage magazine and, with her husband, co-author of Teatime at Peggy’s: A Glimpse of Anglo-India.
