If you are looking for Black theatre in London, there is so much more of it than there was five years ago, and a lot of it is very good. The Lyric Hammersmith, the Kiln, Stratford East and @sohoplace have all programmed Black-led work this year, and the RSC has too. I have had ticket offers on five Black-led shows for my members in the last six months alone, and those are consistently the ones that go fastest.
I want to start with what has actually been on, because I think the list actually makes the point better than I can.
There was JaJa’s African Hair Braiding at the Lyric Hammersmith, which is set in a braiding salon and is one of the funniest and warmest things I have seen in a long time. Fences, also at the Lyric, which is August Wilson and which will have my members talking for weeks afterwards. Marie and Rosetta at @sohoplace, about Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and that one had people emailing me afterwards just to talk about it. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, which I had at the RSC in Stratford and then again when it came into @sohoplace. Plus An Ideal husband, again at the Lyric in Hammersmith.
And now I’m Every Woman at Troubadour Wembley Park, with Alexandra Burke as Chaka Khan, which my members went to last week.
Five shows. Six months. All of them Black-led, and every single one of them shifted faster than anything else I sent out.
The Lyric Hammersmith has been the standout for my members this year.
Look at that list again and you will see the Lyric three times. That is not because I have a soft spot for Hammersmith, it is because they keep programming work worth going to and they keep talking to me about it. The Kiln does the same. Theatre Royal Stratford East has been doing it for decades, long before anybody was writing strategy documents about it. And @sohoplace has taken on Black-led work at real West End scale, which matters, because there is a difference between a studio run and a house on Charing Cross Road.
The RSC is in there too, and that surprises people. I have worked with them, and the work coming out of Stratford is not what most people picture when they think Royal Shakespeare Company.
If you only ever look at what is advertised on the tube, you will miss most of this.
Because a lot of people have been waiting a long time to see themselves on a stage.
My members list started at 700 names and it is now over 1,200, and it has always been mostly, but not exclusively, Black and Brown members booking. When I send out an offer for a show like Fences or JaJa’s, I do not have to persuade anybody. The tickets are snapped up very quickly. And I will say the commercial part out loud, because it is definitely not a secret. That response is exactly why venues come to me. They know I can bring an audience that a poster on the Piccadilly line won’t reach.
There is also a much bigger point underneath it though. For a long time the message a lot of people got, in one way or another, was that theatre was not really for them. Too expensive, too formal, not about anyone they recognised. My whole working life has been spent arguing with that, and my tagline has been the same for years. The arts are for everyone. I do mean everyone, and my membership is open to anybody who loves this stuff.
But I am not going to pretend I don’t take particular pleasure in filling a house with people who were told, once, that it was not for them.
The problem with the good ones is that they are often short runs in smaller houses.
A big musical will advertise to you for months. A three-week run at the Kiln won’t, and by the time it gets reviewed well it has often nearly finished. I know the marketing teams, they tell me what is coming, and I send it round before it sells out.
That is really all the membership is. I find the work, I get a price on it, and I send it to you early enough to do something about it. There are two levels and you can read about both on my membership page.
If you have been meaning to see more of this kind of work and keep finding out too late, come and join us. I would love to have you join the group.
