About the show
Marcel is doing life in jail. He’s a class clown who’s spent most of his life living for others and is desperate for another chance at life. When he is presented with new evidence that can exonerate him of his entire sentence, he is left split as it would require him to ’snitch’. Marcel spirals and goes on a deep journey inwards in an attempt to free himself.
Before I Go: Marcel playfully jumps in-between verse and prose and runs with a live band that guides the audience through the rhythmic language. It is an exposing, electric and provocative play that speaks to our community values.
Age Guidance: 14+
Content Awareness: Scenes of violence, profanity, mentions of death.
Running Time: 70 mins
Please Note: Strobe lighting and haze will be used in this performance. Photography/filming will take place during this performance.
Creatives:
Writer/Performer – Tobi King Bakare
Producer – Kings Playground Productions
Lighting Designer – Ezra Mortimer
Drummer – Jamir Scarlett
This performance takes place in the 2026 season of Young, Gifted & Black, and the 40th Anniversary year of Theatre Peckham. Click here to see the full programme for Young, Gifted & Black.
Your Stage, Your Story, Your Theatre Peckham. #TP40
Reviews
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★★★★★
Like his co-star Michaela Coel in covid smash hit I May Destroy You, writer and actor Tobi King Bakare is a polymath. The writer and only performer in Before I Go, he has created a hilarious, moving and poignant show about mental health and what it means to be a young black man today, where there are simultaneously endless rules and none, set by society, peers and ourselves.
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★★★★★
"Before I Go" is an evocative one-man show featuring Tobi King Bakare as Ajani, a young Black British man who must learn to communicate with his friends and family after a near-death experience leaves him stuck in Limbo, a place between life and the afterlife.
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★★★★☆
Actor Tobi King Bakare’s writing debut tells a raw, honest, one-man story of masculine silence and what it takes to express the emotional struggles plaguing black men.
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★★★★☆
Moving, graceful, and utterly captivating – these describe both Bakare’s performance, and this production of his play.
