Post by Dave B on Jun 24, 2022 8:52:35 GMT
A new play from Roy Williams, currently in previews with opening night on Monday.
I saw this last night. There was a brief word from director Paulette Randall beforehand, basically they had to go back into rehearsals on Monday as Lucy Vandi is indisposed. So Cherrelle Skeete who had a smaller dual role in the play had replaced her in what is the lead role, and they had brought in Yasmin Mwanza to take over her original role. Randall asked us to bear with them and that there would be occasionally a script in hand. It looks like the changes might now be in place for the full run as Vandi no longer features on the website.
Well, Skeete was great both with and without script in hand. I'd guess there was a deliberate choice to focus on key scenes as for some of the bigger turning points, she didn't need the script and had it down. There was a loud mobile ring at one point while she had one of her bigger moments and turned the rage and shouting at another character to the audience member 'turn off that f***ing phone' and frankly she should have been cheered for that. Similarly Mwanza had script in hand for one of the roles but the other (admittedly aided by a used prop of a PC's notebook), no need for the script.
Mwanza was good, Skeete was excellent - even more so considering they had to go back into rehearsals Monday and previews opened Tuesday!
That aside, the play is a family drama about a Black British family with the Windrush generation and the two following generations. There are a couple of specific incidents the play draws on, the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the speeding/points of Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce (and yes it feels odd that both those things are in the same sentence). It is long, was told 2h.45m, was probably closer to 2h.35m last night (done at 22.10 but a few minutes late start). It could probably do with a little tightening up (and creatives were sat in the back row taking notes) but more than happy to cut them some slack. Funny in places, several jokes or pieces of slang that I did not get but many in the audience did - not youth/kids slang but what I assume is Windrush/Jamaican cultural slang, the lady next to me was highly amused by things that went straight over my head more than once.
Overall, I enjoyed it. A number of people on their feet at the end and a more diverse audience than I usually see so I suspect that (like anything) if you can relate more to it, you might get more out of it. Even if not, it's still a decent family drama with a strong cast, writing and direction.
