MARYS SEACOLE ★★

The Donmar until June 4 donmarwarehouse.com

A magnificent Kayla Meikle plays Mary Seacole, the Jamaican nurse whose pioneering work during the Crimean War was whitewashed out of history.

The play leaps from the 1850s to now and back in a wearyingly confusing jumble of scenes that examine the black experience of white privilege through the lens of nursing.

Six actresses play multiple roles and accents (with varying success). It’s doubtless great fun for them, less so for us when a quagmire of messy staging and uneven pacing, dialogue and tone ultimately feel like pretentious improvisation.

This extraordinary story and the important themes at its heart deserve far better than this.