Theatre reviews: Wallace | Black Is The Colour Of My Voice
It’s only a small-scale production for now, but Rob Drummond and David Hook’s hip-hop take on the story of William Wallace could lead to much greater things, writes Joyce McMillan
Wallace, Oran Mor, Glasgow ★★★★
Black Is The Colour Of My Voice, Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh ★★★★
It was exactly 30 years ago this week that the Mel Gibson film Braveheart was released in the UK; and to judge by Rob Drummond and David Hook’s vivid new hip-hop musical Wallace, which opens this autumn’s Play, Pie and Pint season in Glasgow and Edinburgh, a whole generation of Scots who were young and impressionable in those days are still wrestling with its emotional and political legacy.
Braveheart is famous for offering a powerful but much contested version of the life of William Wallace, the great Scottish patriot and warrior who, we are told, led the resistance to Edward I’s late 13th century harrowing of Scotland; and Drummond and Hook’s show borrows shamelessly from the style of the smash hit musical Hamilton to tell the tale of a character called “Scotsman” - played by rapper and poet Hook himself - whose political views, and sense of identity, are heavily bound up with the film’s heroic image of Wallace as a freedom fighter.
The problem with this image, though, is that it is at best debatable, and at worst a complete illusion; and as the rap battle evolves, the two other characters - Manasa Tagica and Patricia Panther, both in brilliant form as “Sassenach” and “Wummin” - take a mouthy delight in demolishing the Scotsman’s hero, pointing out the cruel mass slaughter of the military campaigns credited to him, the horrific erasure of women from that period of history, and also the slender evidence - at least in Scottish records - that Wallace ever existed at all, as a person rather than a myth.
In Orla O’Loughlin’s brisk yet thoughtful production, all this is delivered through a brilliantly varied and witty series of rap numbers, complete with joyfully left-field movement and design.
In the end, the show tries to hedge its bets a little, suggesting that Scotland, like any other nation, has a right to conjure up the stories it needs, to help it move forward.
At heart, though, this show’s creative energy and style lies with the angry debunking of national myths, in a style that’s both harsh, and worth debating, given current events in Ukraine and elsewhere; and there’s certainly a sense that this show, co-produced by dynamic Glasgow company Raw Material, is only beginning a long journey of development and expansion, which could lead to much greater things.
There’s a similar uneasy sense of politics in motion - unresolved, evolving, sometimes dangerous - in singer, actress and writer Apphia Campbell’s great 2013 show Black Is The Colour Of My Voice, now on an autumn tour across the UK. The show is an exploration of the life of the great American singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone; and this week Campbell herself gave three performances at the Lyceum Theatre, before handing over the solo role of Simone - or rather her slightly fictionalised version, Mena - to actress and singer Florence Odumosu.
The show is set in a simple hotel room, where Mena has locked herself in for a three-day “cleansing” in an effort to win some sense of reconnection with the spirit of her late and much-loved father; and for 80 minutes or so, she thinks, reflects, remembers, and dreams, both about the griefs and pains of her private life, and about the traumatic events of the 1950s and 1960s, when black Americans campaigning for full civil rights were often met with oppression and violence. And of course Campbell sings - in her own glorious voice - many of Simone’s greatest hits, from Mississippi Goddamn to Feeling Good; in a hugely searching and courageous journey through raging psychological and political waters, towards a conclusion that feels like freedom, but still promises little peace.
Wallace is at Oran Mor, Glasgow until 6 September, and at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 9-13 September. Black Is The Colour Of My Voice is at the MacRobert Centre, Stirling, on 25 September, and on tour across the UK.
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