There is a rage in this play but also the sweetest feelings of love and resilience as the characters pull together through the toughest of circumstances, not just their poverty, the bewilderment and aggression of their new British neighbours but an attack on their identity and their very existence. “Go home…” they would if they could but their one-way trip just has to work.
Watching the BFI’s recent documentary on Cymande, a ground-breaking band who found success in the US but not at home in the United Kingdom of the seventies when they too were told to go home by some. Where to, Brixton, South Norwood? As with the characters in this play, Cymande were part of the Windrush generation, the sons of the kind of men represented in Roy Williams stunning adaptation of Sam Selvon’s book, The Lonely Londoners first published in 1956. Selvon was born in Trinidad and also co-wrote the film Pressure (1976) * with director Horace OvĂ© about the second generation of Windrush immigrants and their experience in the hostile Seventies.
Roy Williams uses an audacious mix of theatre – songs sung by the sublime Aimee Powell who also dances and acts, along with moments when the whole troupe are choreographed in ways that carry such emotional force in the JST’s discrete and intensely focused performance area. Props to the movement direction of Nevena Stojkov whose work leaves you breathless and gives you pause to really think beyond the words we hear. This injustice is far from over and as the Right attempts to reinvent “racism” as the act of merely pointing out factual inequality, we shouldn’t ever take our privilege for granted nor other’s experience both in peacetime and in war.
You should have been here in fifty-two. London was so cold. It got so bad here, when you try and speak, the words freeze as they come out of your mouth and you have to melt it to hear the talk.
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| Gamba Cole. All photos by Alex Brenner! |
Ebenezer Bamgboye directs a potent cast with Gamba Cole just a powerhouse as central figure Moses who acts as a mentor to many new arrivals “cos only I know which of London where dem slam doors in your face, and which ones let us in.” As he says, he’s hardly living the dream himself but at least he knows how to pronounce the street names unlike his pal Big City (Gilbert Kyem Jnr who dwarfs the rest of the cast) who has his own way of pronouncing things leading to much frustrated hilarity.
The dream they are living is a nightmare of loneliness, unemployment and forced pigeon eating, renting poor rooms in Bayswater and often at the mercy of the minority of landlords who will offer them accommodation; “no blacks, no Irish, no dogs…” is contested but there were plenty of “no coloureds”, “no West Indians” notices put up for people who were encouraged to the UK by a government in search of cheap labour to aid the post-war recovery.
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| Tobi Bakare |
But there are always punctuations of humour, the comforts of friends and family even as relationships and personalities are stretched to the limit. Tobi Bakare is superb as Lewis who, having fibbed about earning five pounds a week, invited his wife Agnes (Shannon Hayes) to join him only for his domineering mother, Tanty (Carol Moses) to come as well. They are in a situation where her call for him to be a man only makes matters worse as he has already tried everything he could. Desperate, he starts to doubt his wife’s faithfulness, Agnes is indeed formidable, a trained nurse and an intelligent woman who easily bests a grocer who tries to give her over-ripe fruit, disarming him with charm and resolution, but she is also resolutely steadfast. Lewis cannot cope with his disappointment of both these women and he turns to drink.
I tell you Galahad, this London man! The way it gets inside of you.
Fresh over from Trinidad is Henry ‘Sir Galahad’ Oliver (Romario Simpson) who comes to Moses for help even as he is experiencing the humiliations that the others know all too well. He is smart and cocky, thinking he can simply transpose his natural assets to this new, wet, grey environment. As he is gradually worn down by the obstacles of Britain, we catch glimpses of what also happened to Moses, his doomed love affair back home with Christina (Aimee Powell) and the son he can never see but one he drafts letters to every day.
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| Gilbert Kyem Jnr, Gamba Cole, Romario Simpson, Carol Moses, Tobi Bakare, Aimee Powell and Shannon Hayes. |
Galahad keeps on getting into fights with Teddy Boys as he tries to live his life, he grabs a knife from the wall and we fear for the direction he might take as his self-respect refuses to yield. Big City takes a gun and seems intent on following a life of crime as the prospect of a few hundred pounds from a post office robbery with two white crooks draws him in…
The temptations of lawlessness, violence and self-medication are all that is left to men who are outcast, under-employed and left with only transactional relationships with sex workers to bring them fleeting compassion. And yet… they have each other, there are plentiful pigeons and they may well continue to fight, especially in this city which can indeed get under the skin. By the end of the play, we feel a closeness that you don’t always find in the theatre; this play draws you to the characters in rare and compelling ways. We root for them, we wish them the best. We look to ourselves.
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| Shannon Hayes and Carol Moses |
IThankYou Theatre verdict: ***** This is an
extraordinary play with Williams remixing Selvon’s story to create a compelling
slice of lives that are still being lived in London and elsewhere. Its
universal humanity stirs and shakes us from complacency and the only thing left
is kindness and understanding. Go see it!
Lonely Londoners plays until 6th April and I urge you to take a trip to Piccadilly whilst there are still tickets available. Details on the JST website.
*Pressure was recently restored and re-released by the BFI; you can find it on the BFI Player here.
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| Song... |
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| ... and Dance! |
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| Great lighting and photos by Alex Brenner |
