Act 1 Scene 2: Jo & the Boy
Jo Meets the Boy
With Helen increasingly absent — spending time with Peter and drinking — Jo is left alone in the flat. It is in this isolation that she meets the Boy, a young Black sailor. In the script he is called only “the Boy”, and Jo names him — Jimmie — just once, in Act 2, Scene 2. That near-namelessness is a deliberate choice by Delaney. His identity is defined by his race and his role in Jo’s life rather than by his individuality. This anonymity can be read in two ways: it reflects the racism of the era, which refused to see Black people as individuals, but it also makes him a universal figure of tenderness and brief happiness.
The Boy is presented as gentle, sincere, and openly affectionate — qualities that contrast sharply with every other character in Jo’s life. He tells Jo she is beautiful when Helen and Peter have made her feel worthless. He offers her warmth and attention when her mother offers neglect. Their relationship, though brief, is the only one in the play built on genuine mutual affection rather than need, transaction, or habit.
The script calls him only “the Boy”, and Jo says his name, Jimmie, once in Act 2, Scene 2. This near-anonymity reflects 1950s racism that denied individuality to Black people, but also makes him a symbolic figure: he represents the tenderness and warmth that Jo cannot find anywhere else in her life. His namelessness is both a social critique and a dramatic device.
The Ring & the Proposal
The Boy gives Jo a ring and proposes marriage. Jo’s reaction is characteristically unsentimental: “I love you. You know I love you” — but she is also realistic, asking “How can you marry me? You’re only a sailor.” The ring becomes a powerful symbol in the play. Jo wears it on a ribbon around her neck rather than on her finger, suggesting she treasures the relationship but knows it cannot become a conventional marriage.
The proposal scene is one of the most tender in the play, yet Delaney undercuts it with dramatic irony: the audience knows that the Boy is about to leave for six months with the navy, and that this fragile happiness cannot last. Jo asks him, “Do you think I’m really beautiful?” and he replies with warmth and certainty. For a girl whose mother belittles her looks and whose mother’s boyfriend wants her out of the way, this is the only moment in the play where someone tells Jo she has value.
In 1958, an interracial relationship on stage was genuinely shocking. The Windrush generation had been arriving in Britain since 1948, but racial prejudice was widespread and open. The 1958 Notting Hill race riots exposed the depth of anti-Black hostility in British society. By presenting the Boy as the kindest, most genuine character in the play, Delaney directly challenged the racist assumptions of her audience.
Jo herself is notably unconcerned about race. When Helen later expresses horror at the idea of a mixed-race grandchild, Jo is baffled by her mother’s prejudice. This generational difference is significant: Delaney suggests that the younger generation may be capable of moving beyond the bigotry of their parents. For AO3, note how Delaney uses the interracial relationship to critique 1950s attitudes rather than simply reflecting them.
Innocence & Vulnerability
The relationship between Jo and the Boy is characterised by innocence. They play together, tease each other, and share a physical closeness that is presented without judgement. Delaney writes their intimacy with a lightness that contrasts with Helen and Peter’s crude, alcohol-fuelled pairing. The Boy sings to Jo — jazz songs feature throughout the scene — and their time together has a dreamlike quality that separates it from the harsh realism of the rest of the play.
However, this innocence is also Jo’s vulnerability. She is a teenager with no parental guidance, entering a sexual relationship that will result in pregnancy. Delaney does not moralise about this — there is no authorial judgement of Jo’s choices. Instead, the play presents the pregnancy as a natural consequence of a young girl seeking warmth and love in a world that offers her neither. Jo’s line “I really do live at the same time as myself, don’t I?” captures her self-awareness and her sense of wonder at her own experience.
“I really do live at the same time as myself, don’t I?” is one of Jo’s most revealing lines. It suggests a moment of existential self-awareness: Jo is struck by the immediacy of her own experience. It is a young person discovering that life is happening to them right now, not in some distant future — and it carries a bittersweet edge, because the consequences of this relationship will define her future.
The Boy’s departure for the navy is presented matter-of-factly. He promises to return in six months, but both he and Jo seem to understand that this is unlikely. His leaving follows the play’s pattern of abandonment: Jo is left alone again, just as Helen left her for Peter. The difference is that the Boy leaves with genuine regret, whereas Helen leaves with barely a backward glance.
Simultaneously, Helen marries Peter. The wedding happens offstage, and Jo is not invited — a detail that underlines her exclusion from Helen’s new life. Jo is now pregnant, alone, and about to enter Act 2 without either her mother or her lover. Delaney structures the end of Act 1 as a double abandonment: both the Boy and Helen exit Jo’s life within the same dramatic movement, leaving her isolated at the play’s midpoint.
Dramatic Significance
Act 1, Scene 2 is structurally crucial because it establishes the pregnancy that drives the second half of the play. Without the Boy, there is no baby; without the baby, there is no reason for Geof to stay or for Helen to return. The scene also deepens the play’s treatment of race, gender, and class. Jo’s interracial relationship is presented as the most natural and loving in the play, implicitly criticising the audience’s prejudices. The Boy’s kindness exposes the cruelty of Peter and the negligence of Helen by contrast.