The set and costumes for the production were designed by the theatre's Head of Design, Roger Butlin. Butlin had studied textiles, lettering and cabinet making at the West of England College of Art in Bristol but his interest in the theatre led to his designing productions while teaching at Cheltenham College. He was inspired to take up stage design as a profession when he saw The Flying Dutchman at Covent Garden in 1966 and was impressed by the strong abstract shapes of Sean Kenny's set. After working at Sadler's Wells Theatre, he went on to design productions at the Royal Court Theatre and major British opera houses before coming to Greenwich.

The Greenwich theatre is small, with no fly tower and wing space. It has an open thrust stage based on a hexagon. Butlin incorporated hexagonal shapes into his design and kept his setting simple. To avoid obscuring the action and provide space for crowd scenes, dances, and the play's parody of a Minstrel Show, he created a low raked hexagonal platform and used a similarly shaped screen at the rear, on which were projected black and white news photographs of police brutality and race riots.