REVIEW: In the Black, Quaz Degraft, EdFringe 2026 ★★★★

“You got one hour. Then lights out.”

This is the first line of Quaz Degraft’s sharp satire In the Black. Cleverly, it’s also a concise summation of the challenge every Fringe show faces: to hold the audience’s attention for sixty minutes and in doing so manage to tell a memorable story, justifying its existence in a sea of other voices. This play does this and then some, thanks to Degraft’s engaging performance and poignant, witty writing.

We meet our narrator (Degraft) as an orange-clad prisoner nicknamed Calc, named so for his astounding quickness with numbers. Soon enough, his real story begins to unfold: that of Kofi, the New York City-raised son of a Ghanaian immigrant father, and his brushes with wealth and success starting as a teenager taking a friend’s BMW for a spin and later as a rookie in the high-flying world of Manhattan finance.

After scoring a job at a prestigious Wall Street firm, Kofi scrambles to balance the influences in his life: his father, encouraging him to become an accountant, his higher-ups, pushing him to excel at increasingly worrisome costs, and a budding romance with his bubbly coworker Gia. Will his allegiance to family and friendship prevail over the lure of success? And what did he do to end up in jail?

Kofi is an amiable hero you can’t help but root for, and the secondary characters, from his father, to Gia, to his best friend, are also winningly embodied by Degraft. The play vividly illustrates themes of heritage, gender inequality, education, and the American dream, while staying consistently funny with an edge of suspense. There’s also a lovely throughline of music that, while understated, is unexpectedly powerful.

Politically biting and sweetly redemptive, In the Black heralds Degraft as a surefire new voice in the solo show medium. The fact that it is inspired by his own time in finance, having left four years ago to pursue his dreams as an artist, makes it all the more rewarding. Connection triumphing over capitalism is the underdog story we need right now.

Recommended drink: Bottled water, ideally from the office water cooler. Hydrate or die-drate!

Catch In the Black at Underbelly Bristo Square (Daisy) from August 18-31 at 14:45 (60 mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Box Office.