Affianced to the lovely Imoinda, the warrior prince Oroonoko, heir to a west African throne, is obliged to suffer the king his grandfather's insistence on his droit de seigneur.

ECONOMIST: Theatre at Stratford

When the king dies, Orumba satisfies his ambition for the crown by selling Oroonoko too, and the lovers end up in the British colony of Surinam, where Oroonoko leads a slave rebellion, is betrayed, imprisoned and finally killed.

ECONOMIST: Theatre at Stratford

Behn's high-nosed, thin-lipped and French-educated Oroonoko is essentially an idealised European prince in blackface, while the sighs and tremblings of the lovers and the wanton dalliance of the king have an air of cupids and harpsichords and peeping breasts.

ECONOMIST: Theatre at Stratford