A review by Clive Davis for The Times of London.
Two different versions of the Windrush story are on offer at the moment. At Theatre Royal Stratford East, a revival of ska musical The Big Life delivers a brash tale in which romance, lust and dreams come crashing together in Piccadilly Circus.
The same location figures in Sam Selvon’s pioneering novel The Lonely Londoners, published nearly 70 years ago and now adapted by Roy Williams. If the title sounds forbidding, the book, a series of loosely connected anecdotes, is an often droll portrait of newcomers trying to hustle a living amid the fog.
To bring such an episodic work to the stage is quite a task. Williams, co-writer on the National’s Death of England cycle of plays, gives the narrative a more sombre edge, while the director Ebenezer Bamgboye oversees slow-motion interludes where the superb cast resemble figures in a ballet.
If you’re not familiar with the source material or its rich patois you may be confused at times. The character of Moses (given real heart by Gamba Cole) remains at the centre of things, operating as an unofficial welfare officer to the string of pals and chancers who come knocking at the door of his room in Bayswater. Chief among them is Romario Simpson’s irrepressible Galahad, who has arrived off the boat with little more than a toothbrush. Tobi Bakare, meanwhile, is the ever jealous Lewis.
Women have lesser parts. Carol Moses makes a formidable Tanty, nonetheless, and Williams sketches the haunting figure of Christina (Aimee Powell) as an idealised partner Moses has left behind in the West Indies. Shannon Hayes’s Agnes, wife to Lewis, is a dignified presence, willing to stand up to market traders who try to pass off sub-standard fruit and veg.
When they are not speaking the actors sit in a line on trunks facing the audience. Laura Ann Price’s set resembles a wall of dominoes in which lights flash up postcodes of various neighbourhoods. The sound designer Tony Gayle furnishes a disorientatingly modern musical soundtrack.
The novel’s seamier side is sometimes played down. There’s no sign of Captain, the sponger who lives off one woman after another. Instead, the most rewarding moments come when Williams reproduces the book’s picaresque humour: the scenes where the men try to stave off their hunger by trapping pigeons and seagulls have an Ealing comedy quality to them.
★★★☆☆
105min
To April 6, jermynstreettheatre.co.uk
A review by Clive Davis for The Times of London. Two different versions of the Windrush story are on offer at the moment. At Theatre Royal Stratford East, a revival of ska musical The Big Life delivers a brash tale in which romance, lust and dreams come crashing together in Piccadilly Circus. The same location figures in
