In 1688 the British writer and playwright Aphra Behn published her 'true history' called Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave. It tells the story of an African prince, tricked into slavery and transported to the British colony of Surinam in South America.

Biyi Bandele has written a witty, thought-provoking play that is at once a celebration of Aphra Behn's humanist vision, a bold and irreverent re-interpretation of the three hundred year-old classic and a tragic love story that resounds with passion. First performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place, Stratford-on-Avon, in 1999. (Cast 10m, 3f).