'Windrush: Movement of the People'

Wow!

What a mesmerising, captivating and completely absorbing performance Windrush: Movement of the People is. I was lucky enough to catch it at Bristol Old Vic, where it is only on for two nights at the start of a tour to various venues around the UK (check the link at the end of this post for more information).

Created by the impressive Phoenix Dance Theatre, Windrush celebrates and illuminates the promises, reality and hope during this 70th anniversary year of the arrival of the SS Empire Windrush, which brought the first Caribbean migrants to the UK. The boat brought 492 people (known as the Windrush generation) from the Caribbean to the UK in 1948 in a moment that marked the start of the post war immigration boom that led to a radical shift in British society.

The soundtrack by Christella Litras is evocative and effective, spinning between calypso, jazz, gospel, reggae and more, and completely brings to life the changes occuring in those crucial decades of Britain’s formative multicultural era. The refrain of “You called and we came” from a poem read aloud is particularly haunting, as the newly arrived immigrants are shunned and excluded from a hostile British society.

Choreographer (and Phoenix Dance Company artistic director) Sharon Watson creates an extraordinary story that introduces us to our protagonists who are full of hope at what a move to the UK might mean (the sunny orange lighting supporting this), and then the awful reality of racism and bigotry that they encounter once here (portrayed by eerie faceless dancers in masks who wonderfully conjure up a sense of fear and ignorance, and backed up by dark and sombre lighting), followed by the sense of community and camaraderie that is fostered as a result (matched by the warmth of interior lighting). The duet between a reunited couple (Vanessa Vince-Pang, pictured above, and Prentice Whitlow), who had been parted for months, is especially beautiful to watch.

Windrush: Movement of the People is utterly mesmerising and I was gasping when the performance ended. I wanted to watch more and I want to watch it again. Don’t miss this!

Windrush is at Bristol Old Vic for two nights only, as part of its UK tour. It is performed at Bristol Old Vic as part of the Seeds of Change week, which is itself a part of Black History Month.  For more information on the national tour of Windrush, please click here.

Down in Demerara

There’s a suspicion that Felix Radstock has gone on holiday by mistake…

The protagonist in Mike Manson’s third novel Down in Demerara is a freelance labour market research analyst who is plucked from his sleepy Bristol office by the mysterious DoDO organisation to head to Guyana on a fact finding mission. What follows is the hilarious but touching story of an innocent abroad in a very unusual place.

Guyana is a real place on the northern mainland of South America, yet few people have heard of it (myself included, prior to reading Down in Demerara). So Mike handily provides us with a hand-drawn map at the front of the book, locating Guyana and its capital Georgetown with the other areas of the country that Felix visits. And Mike creates a wonderful mental film for the reader of the sights and sounds of the South American wildlife and habitats, drawn from his own visits there.

Set in 1999, with the shadow of the millennium bug looming over the world, Felix is feeling the growing pressure to finish his report about this little known South American country (and return to the safety of Bristol and his fiance) before Christmas and before the world implodes when the Y2K bug destroys all the infrastructure. But before that can happen, our innocent abroad has to put his trust in a lot of unlikely characters as he navigates his way around an increasingly bizarre state of affairs. The sense of paranoia and panic is escalating.

With his driver and assistant Xavier leading him a merry dance, Felix finds his preconceptions - and misconceptions - challenged. He is wrong to think Xavier is simply a driver; he is wrong to think the mysterious Roxy actually wants to measure his head for a hat; and he is wrong to think he really knows why DoDo has sent him to Guyana... as Felix’s heart-rending visit to the gold mines in the heart of the bush and rainforest reveal.

As well as being a ramshackle travelogue, Down in Demerara is also a ecological warning, gently advising the reader of the importance of making a difference, however small it seems. Always be suspicious of the big, evil corporations. But always be gentle to blue butterflies.

Mike Manson writes with a gentle, friendly and humorous tone that makes you feel from page one that you are in the company of a friend. As with his other novels, Down in Demerara is a comfortable read that draws you in quickly, but it is also pleasing to note the leaps and bounds that Mike’s writing has matured by in his third novel (no doubt thanks to the guidance of his writing tutor Fay Weldon: if you’re going to take advice from anyone, Fay is pretty much as good as it gets!). Mike’s own passion for spreading the word about the magic of Guyana and for challenging our assumptions about people and places comes through loud and clear, and makes for a refreshing and funny read in his sparkling new book.

Down In Demerara is published by Tangent Books. Pre-order your copy from this link.

'Make More Noise' at Bristol Old Vic

It can’t have escaped your attention that 2018 is the centenary year of when (some) women were finally entitled to vote. To mark this, Bristol Old Vic’s Young Company presents its tribute to the women of the past who shaped our future.

Taking its title from a famous Emmeline Pankhurst quote (“You have to make more noise than anybody else…”), Make More Noise is of the moment, melding one or two historical facts with present day problems, all of which concern women. Because the vote was just the start…

A range of strong women from history are referenced during this busy hour of theatre. There is the generic suffragette character as well as named sheroes such as Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, American birth control activist Margaret Sanger and Hollywood actor Uma Thurman.

It is the Uma Thurman section that I found the most affecting, with one of the cast speaking proudly about her love for Question Tarantino films, especially Pulp Fiction and the famous dancing scene with Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega. As the cast don ubiquitous white shirts over their black jeans to dance the twist to Chuck Berry’s You Never Can Tell, our narrator reminds us that Pulp Fiction was produced by Harvey Weinstein, who we now know sexually assaulted Uma during the film’s production. And watching that joyous, strong woman dance in that famous scene, knowing what we now know… we are invited to think about how Uma (playing Mia) must have felt at that time. And I found that very effecting.

Make More Noise is an energetic and enthusiastic tour through contemporary feminism. With a strong, all-female cast who dance, sing and shout their way through his/herstory, at times I did wonder who the intended audience was. The cast was all white and predominantly young (facts they acknowledge), but it seemed a stretch to believe that of the 300+ students at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School there were no BAME women who could have filled some of these roles, especially given how self-conscious the script was in places to acknowledge ‘cis’ white privilege.

But that aside, it is always positive to see feminism embraced and celebrated by a new generation and Make More Noise is a triumphant celebration of where we have been as women and where we need to go next.

Make More Noise is being performed at Bristol Old Vic until 4 August 2018. For more info and to book tickets, click here.

'Old Baggage' by Lissa Evans

For nearly a decade, I've kept my eyes open for books about the suffrage campaign (and written about many of them on this blog). And while I'll happily devour both fiction and non-fiction with a suffrage bent, I've a strong preference for fiction - because it seemed so hard to come by until recently. 

Last February, I stumbled upon a copy of Crooked Heart by Liisa Evans and absolutely adored it (you can read my review here). It followed ten-year-old Noel who had been brought up by his godmother Mattie, a former suffragette, and it was a smart, buzzy and interesting take on the suffrage novel. So it made sense that I was also going to love Lissa's new novel, Old Baggage, which was published recently. 

Old Baggage is a prequel to Crooked Heart, and I'm delighted to say that we have even more of Mattie in this novel. It also poses the interesting but rarely considered question: "What do you do next, after you've changed the world?" Mattie was a strident suffragette, she had thrown herself heart and mind into the campaign, but now it's 1928 and universal suffrage has finally been achieved. 

Now in her mid-50s, Mattie is stuck living in the past. Her home is called The Mousehole (in reference to it having been a place of recuperation for hunger striking suffragettes who had been temporarily released from prison under the 'Cat and Mouse Act'); she lives companionably with sister suffragette Florrie; and she spends her evenings giving informative lectures about the suffrage campaign to increasingly disinterested audiences, for whom the events of the recent past are meaningless. Mattie needs something more. 

And that something more comes in the form of waking up the new generation of young women... and trying to teach them how to engage with the modern world, to be an active part in it, and how to look after themselves and to be something. But of course, the path of resistance is not a smooth one...

Old Baggage is a really enjoyable and enlivening read, and Mattie is a truly wonderful character - I really hope we see more of her in the future and that Liisa's next book goes back a previous decade and shows Mattie, Florrie and co battling in the midst of the suffrage campaign. Fingers crossed. You can never have enough strong, bold and determined women in literature.

The question of what you do next after you've effected change is a really interesting one, especially in the field of women's rights and specifically suffrage. For the big names such as Millicent Fawcett and Sylvia Pankhurst, we know what they went on to do because their names never stopped attracting interest. But for the everyday foot soldiers such as Mattie, the women whose names weren't in the newspapers but without whom the war would not have been won... the question of how their lives changed is fascinating and often ignored. Yet those women were changed for ever and armed with an impressive toolkit of skills for life, both mentally and physically.

When you have thrown every ounce of your being into a campaign, day in, day out, for decades... and then that campaign is won... while you are delighted, you must also be left feeling flat. When you have gone to prison and endured the trauma of hunger strike for that campaign... and now audiences no longer think what you did was astonishing but merely a curiosity... that must leave you totally deflated. 

There is a lovely scene towards the end of Old Baggage (this isn't a spoiler) when Mattie, Florrie and their sister suffragettes are preparing to go to the polling booths for the very first time (as unmarried women, the 1918 Act still didn't give these warriors the right to vote). This is a monumental day for them, and celebratory cards are posted, motor cars booked to mark the occasion, and they go to the polling stations in unison. Only, of course, there is nobody they want to vote for... all of the candidates are miserable old men who don't have any intention of improving the lot of the new wave of women voters. Which is not a situation that has changed, in many places. 

Lissa Evans is a wonderful storyteller, and having absolutely adored both Crooked Heart and Old Baggage I must seek out some of her other novels. I'm reliably informed that Their Finest Hour and a Half is a cracker, so that's where I'll be heading next.