GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
Shouldering the burden of history
MAYER WAKEFIELD recommends a resonant play on the black British experience, then and now
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
Black Men Walking
Royal Court, London
POET, rapper, beatboxer and now theatre-maker — Testament is a man with many strings to his bow.
Encouraged by Eclipse Theatre's artistic director Dawn Walton — also the shrewdly adept director of this show — and inspired by David Olusoga's 2015 television series Black and British: A Forgotten History, he set about writing Black Men Walking by climbing the Peaks alongside a group of black men who climb them monthly to catch a break from their very different daily lives.
Exploring centuries of black British history from John Moore, a Freeman of the City of York in Tudor times, to one of Britain’s first black footballers Paul Canoville, the play is a stark reminder of both historical and current racial injustice in Britain.
But it's also a portrayal of hope and perseverance, located deep within the personal experiences of four superbly crafted characters.
Similar stories
MAYER WAKEFIELD is gripped by a production dives rapidly from champagne-quaffing slick to fraying motormouth
MAYER WAKEFIELD recommends a musical ‘love letter’ to black power activists of the 1970s
RON JACOBS welcomes a survey of US punk in the era of Reagan, and sees the necessity for some of the same today
ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses