STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
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A black and white issue
The word racism doesn't have to be mentioned in a thrillingly explicit exploration of inequality, says MARY CONWAY
SOUL BROTHERS: Daniel Ward (left) and Nigel Taylor in The Canary and the Crow
[Pic: The Other Richard]
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
The Canary and the Crow
Arcola Theatre, London
THE CANARY and the Crow kicks off with an explosion of heavy hip hop and a challenge from actor Nigel Taylor to clap, stamp, wave our arms and chant. We love it and are undeterred, even when the chanting changes to the rugby favourite “oggy, oggy, oggy.”
It’s unsettling, though, to hear black music accommodate this white man’s chorus. What does it mean? That’s the point of the play, in which The Bird is a deprived black boy who finds himself winning a scholarship to a high-achieving school.
His single mother is ecstatic, while the boy is mystified. He's about to discover that being black and different in a community of patrician boys is a ceaseless struggle. “I see things differently from you,” he says to a largely white young audience. “There is nothing you can tell me about being black.”
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