The second of Theatre West’s autumn season performances, Shipped, written by Bristol University graduate Eno Mfon and starring Tosin Thompson as feisty teenager Adamma and Sobawale Bamgbose as her Uncle Fred, delves deep into conflicting worlds of political and sexual politics.
Mfon’s writing puts old imperialist Britain’s construct of Nigeria under the microscope. She plunges her young heroine Adamma into the still simmering regional conflict left by the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-70, a struggle that saw the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra crushed when over three million of its inhabitants were starved to death when blockaded by the British-backed Nigerian government. When Adamma discovers more about her real identity her political persona awakes, but will her new ability to express herself be given a chance?
Adamma is black. She’s cool and sassy, and she is nobody’s fool. She likes to dress up to go dancing. Her British life is OK. She’s soon to take her A levels when her Dad arranges for her to fly out to Nigeria to stay with his brother ‘Uncle Fred’ for a supposed four-week break.
On arrival Adamma is quickly divested of any feelings of excitement, fun or adventure. Uncle Fred is ‘old school’, a man of few words with an old-fashioned view of what women should be like. He threatens her with beatings because of her independent attitude.
Adamma is told she shouldn’t go out or answer the phone. There is no hot water, and her bed is just a mattress rolled out on the floor. Effectively she is a captive with just stolen moments listening to Fred’s radio as a means to keep in contact with the world. The radio is tuned to a revolutionary Biafran station that reports on killings and missing people. Through Fred, Adamma gradually learns of her real background. She begins to suspect that her uncle’s many absences from the flat coincide with things she hears about on the radio. Disobeying his command not to go out, she follows him, only to end up being at once a hero and an immediate target.
Tosin Thompson puts in a wonderful performance as the young Adamma, particularly strong when facing down her stony uncle, who seems more at ease communicating through his belt than with speech. There are some entertaining semantics between the two, with English spoken from opposite generational poles. Bamgbose’s Fred is a brilliant foil for Adamma’s teenage energy and naivety. His brooding knowledge of the bigger local picture always hangs in the air threateningly. His more tender reveal of Adamma’s real identity and his appreciation of her dad’s personality gave the character great depth.
With simple staging within a single room of Uncle Fred’s flat, Jesse Jones’s direction never falls flat, allowing Ademma plenty of room for both exuberance and frustration in equal measure. Designer Sam Wilde provided just enough interior and window detail with Paul Lewis’s subtle lighting to add to a general sense of claustrophobia and restriction. The theatre space at Hamilton House worked brilliantly for this event.
Following Mfon’s success with her earlier work Check the Label performed at the Bristol Old Vic’s Studio Theatre, Shipped is further proof that she is a black writer worthy of note. An online storm followed one of her posts in which she described being told by a senior lecturer at Bristol that “there was no space for black theatre-makers on the curriculum.” Mfon is living proof that the opposite should be the case. University of Bristol has since issued this statement: “The university has made a strong commitment to increasing diversity in its new strategy, and we’ve broadened out the curriculum significantly across the faculty of arts.”
I strongly recommend you to catch this new work from a very talented team while you can. ★★★★☆ Simon Bishop 14th October 2016
As part of Theatre West’s format this season, a short play, Dummy House, by Nick Havergal was performed before the main act. Performed by Steve Cowley, Dummy House examines the relationship between, on the one hand, all those things that make for a quintessential British way of life – village green, churches, schools, the house with a garden – and on the other, how the state, should it wish, can still render all of that redundant. As we know, villages have disappeared from OS maps in the past, turning up later as firing ranges or training grounds not to be entered. Dummy House is a reminder that we are not as sovereign over our own homes, or our country, as we like to think.
Cowley was an effective narrator, using gestures to good effect as well as strong eye contact to draw us in.
