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Black
Contact Theatre, Manchester/Touring
5/5
THE REPUTATION of Toxteth community theatre group 20 Stories High grows with every production.
Following the acclaimed Melody Loses Her Mojo last year, the Liverpool-based company are back with this powerful new play tackling racism.
Black by Keith Saha is based on a true story set in a predominately white estate on the outskirts of Liverpool.
It homes in on Nikki, a 16-year-old working-class girl. Bored and begrudgingly about to start work experience at a local nursery, Nikki’s life is turned upside down when a black family from Zimbabwe moves in across the road.
Up to then Nikki has happily accepted her father’s and her neighbours’ view that black people are the cause of the country’s ills, accepting as gospel the notion that blacks come to England to take “our” houses and jobs.
Yet, as she gets closer to the children of the family, those convictions start to unravel.
Essentially the play is a monologue, brilliantly delivered by Abby Melia as the confused and bewildered Nikki struggling to come to terms with her epiphany.
The voice of Precious, the teenage Zimbabwean who helps spike Nikki’s conscience, is wonderfully realised through the excellent DJing of Craig Shanda (MC Chunky). His hands glide over his decks like a magician, conjuring a stunning soundscape.
The beautifully stripped-back set created by Miriam Nabarro’s gives an intimate intensity to the production.
This highly effective combination of music, monologue and design — under Julia Samuels’s astute direction — locks the audience into Nikki’s turmoil as her world is completely upended.
Saha’s play is sharp, funny and honest. He provides no easy solutions yet does allow a glint of hope as to the future.
As austerity creates more and more poverty, particularly in traditional white working-class areas, the growth of insidious racism is a real worry, as Saha stressed in a Q & A after the show. His play is an essential tool in combating this cancer among young people.
As such it deserves the widest possible audience, not only because of its important message but because it is an excellent piece of writing delivered by two very talented young performers.
