Tambo & Bones
Leeds Playhouse
★★★★★

IF a play’s ability to provoke can be judged by the number of people who leave during the interval, then Tambo & Bones is an unmitigated success. Those individuals might be relieved to have missed the explosive closing act in Dave Harris’s satire about race, which is so challenging the audience is invited to remain in their seats after it ends for a period of reflection.

Nonetheless, those early leavers do miss out on the conclusion of a vital, self-aware discourse about the past, present and future of race and identity in the US. In today’s political climate, this potentially makes it even more essential viewing than when it originally premiered in 2023.

The play opens with Tambo (Clifford Samuel) and Bones (Daniel Ward) trapped in a minstrel show, dressed in down-at-heel suits and surrounded by “lame ass” fake trees and cartoon scenery. They wile away their time bickering, with the latter wanting to make as much money as he can by performing slapstick for quarters. His friend, meanwhile, is more interested in change and consciousness raising, questioning the need for white audiences to watch the pain of black people.

These conflicting worldviews continue into the next section, which shifts to present day. Here, Tambo and Bones are rap superstars, with both actors believably transitioning into their new personas. They have money but are still deeply divided over whether power and respect can be accumulated by money alone, with Tambo favouring the activism of Public Enemy while his friend remains a hustler fixated on wealth. As such, he submits to the commodification of black performers, ripping off his T-shirt and doubling down on the stereotypes of violence, money, and drugs.

The closing section, set 400 years in the future, finds the duo in TED Talk presenter mode as they celebrate the Historic Day of Remembrance for Tambo and Bones. With the help of two white robots (Jaron Lammens and Dru Cripps, whose 80s body-popping moves are superbly choreographed by Kloe Dean), they reflect on a civil war in which there was white genocide. The humour remains, but it gets ever darker until the final act is played out to barely suppressed horror.

The play isn’t easy viewing, nor is it intended to be such. The absence of a curtain call means there’s no closure for the audience, who file out of the theatre in silence as they reflect on what they’ve just witnessed. It’s a simple but effective omission in a play that Matthew Xia directs with a lightness of touch. This means that the play’s mechanics never detract from a script that challenges the privilege of white people, who Harris knows will be the majority of theatregoers, while also asking black people questions about capitalism and community. 

In the opening section, Tambo strives to deliver “a treatise about race in America.” This darkly comic, provocative show succeeds in doing that and so much more.

Runs until May 24. Box office: 0113 213 7700, leedsplayhouse.org.uk