A False Friend

Alfred Fagon Award — Best New Play — Longlisted (2025)

A False Friend centres on a state-funded experiment and the damage it leaves behind—tracing unchecked power, complicity, and the long psychological fallout of systemic abuse.

What happens when progress requires a victim?

Genre

Drama

Form

Full Length Play

Awards

Alfred Fagon Awards (Best New Play 2025—Longlist)

Stage

In pre-production for a 2026/2027 Stage 1 R&D

Highly Commended by the National Theatre National Theatre.  BBC Writersroom  Top 10%. Alfred Fagon Llyrio Boateng, A False Friend, Alfred Fagon Award longlist, Alfred Fagon Award 2025, Black British playwrights, British theatre, new writing recognition, emerging playwright, contemporary playwriting, UK stage, theatre award longlist Award, Best New Play Longlist.

Llyrio Boateng

A fierce need to confront how the state weaponises bureaucracy pushed me to write A False Friend. It’s rooted in the ways progress is used as a cover for exploiting the vulnerable.

—Llyrio Boateng

Llyrio Boateng is available to discuss the work as writer or writer-director.

Request Reading