Bilimankhwe Arts Blog

Let There Be Love

2008-08-12T04:40:00.000-07:00

Back from the theatre again ... this time Kwame Kwei Armah's 'Let There Be Love' at the Tricycle. A surprise to see such a domestic drama from this writer .. but also a delight. I've seen some reviews complaining of sentimentality, but that didn't bother me at all. I'd rather see something sentimental that moves me than an intellectual piece of political drama that leaves me cold. And move me it did - tears dripping off my chin by the end! It was a very traditional piece with a realistic set with the dreaded sofa at the centre- but this is the exception that proves the rule (the rule being that any play with a sofa in it is likely to be pedestrian and unimaginative. Unfair prejudice, possibly - but think about it). The subject matter of the play was of course (given the writer) contemporary, and the evening was made by the superlative performance of Lydia Leonard as Polish home help Maria - it's hard to imagine a better performance. Joseph Marcel takes the lead, and is, as always, marvellous. I first saw him playing Othello at the Lyric Hammersmith and have never seen him turn in a bad performance (and that includes the ultimate tosh that is The Fresh Prince of Bel Air). Sharon Duncan-Brewster completes the cast, as the spikey and difficult daughter - a character who in less competent hands could be unsympathetic. A moving and engaging show. Let there be love indeed.

Tiata Delights and surprise meetings

2008-08-05T08:26:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday was Tiata Delights at the Almeida which was indeed delightful. I went with my husband Matthew, and Michael Walling and Roe Lane of Border Crossings. Really interesting new West African plays; both were flawed but had brilliant moments and kept my interest throughout. Tiata Fahodzi producer Thomas Kell has worked wonders on the audience development front - it was a really good house, especially when you consider that these were rehearsed readings and not finished performances. Of course there were some wonderful performances, notably from Danny Sapani (one of my very favourite actors) and overall it was a great evening.

There was a surprise for me that night ... I glanced at the next row and saw my ex-colleague from Nanzikambe, Melissa Eveleigh. I haven't seen her for about 18 months, and thought she was in Malawi, so my jaw actually dropped! Great to be able to catch up though, as I've been trying to speak to her about MAF for some time, but due to pressure of work we never seem to be available at the same time.

Organisation for MAF2009 continues to gather pace ... I had a long conversation with Harry Gibbs, who is organising at the Malawi end. He is now officially on board as Production Manager, overseeing the technical side of the festival, and recruiting and managing the Event Production Team. A great relief to have someone so experienced and competent to work alongside me.

West Side Story

2008-07-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

Just back from the theatre last night - West Side Story at Sadlers Wells. I'm not usually very interested in mainstream theatre, but this was fantastic. I'd forgotten how very wonderful the music was, and the choreography was still wonderfully fresh. Even the occasional "daddy-o" in the script didn't make it feel too outdated. Youth knife crime ... still very current. There's nothing new, it seems. If you loved the film, you'll love this revival: it's true to the original and beautifully sung. Go, and have fun!

Caine Prize

2008-07-08T14:19:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week ... much excitement as Stanley Kenani, a good friend from Malawi, arrived in London courtesy of the Caine Prize. His short story, For Honour, was shortlisted for this prestigious award - only 5 on the short list from 90 authors nominated by their publishers. I met Stanley for coffee and we discussed the Malawi Arts Festival. Back in 2004 Stanley approached me with the idea of an Arts festival for Malawi - it's taken several years, but here we are!

Sunday night saw me at the Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre, listening to all the short listed authors read from and discuss their work with Gary Younge. Wonderful to hear the true voices of Africa, gloriously rich and diverse, from Henrietta Rose-Innes' story from South Africa through the earthy humour of Nigerian Uzor Maxim Uzoatu to Stanley's painful dissection of a man's humiliation when his wife sleeps with another man in order to become pregnant. the stories are all available to read online at http://www.newint.org/publications/fiction/jambula-tree/ .

Back to the real world on Monday, and some great news: the French Cultural Centre are now officially on board as sponsors of MAF2009. So the great juggernaut is rolling on, gathering speed. A long conversation with Muthi Nhlema at British Council Malawi this morning thrashed out more details : the dates are now confirmed as 13th - 19th June 2009. So if you're planning on going to Grahamstown this year, why not come to Malawi first?

Tomorrow I am off to York, for the first meeting with Jack Mapanje and dramaturg, Neil Grutchfield, to kick-start the writing of Jack's first play. By the end of the day we will be much clearer about how the process will be organised, and what our goals are for the project. Last week I had a call from International PEN who are interested in the project ... early days, but it looks like it might create a bit of interest in international literary circles.

Malawi Arts Festival

2008-06-16T06:41:00.000-07:00

With the final performance of the Bilimankhwe Young Company's NT Connections show, A Vampire Story, finally over (it went very well, with a good audience at the Arcola Theatre) I'm now getting on with sorting out the Malawi Arts Festival ... MAF2009 is only 10 months away.

We now have a website, www.malawiartsfestival.org and are in the throes of putting a schedule together. Details will be posted here as soon as ... but if everything works, it's going to be quite an exiting week of arts events in Malawi.

resolution

2008-06-08T15:08:00.000-07:00

This has been a busy year ... and I've managed to completely neglect updating my blog. So, rather belatedly and with great shame, I am turning over a new leaf. Anyone looking for up to date information about Bilimankhwe Arts should, from now on, be able to check the blog and see marvellous, interesting and witty comment from yours truly.

Or not.

I suppose you'll just have to check back with the blog next week to see. I heard Bill Bailey today on Desert Island Discs saying that the secret of comedy is to keep saying funny things. I will have succeeded if I can just say some things!

Festival Thoughts

2007-06-25T08:01:00.000-07:00

i've just returned from the marvellous, inspirational place that is the Glastonbury Festival. So many artists, all doing what they're best at, in a temporary city which magically arrives just before the summer solstice on farmland in the West Country and just as mysteriously disappears a few days later - fantastic. Highlights for me were:

... Down at the front for Amy Winehouse on the Jazz/World stage - what fabulous musicians she has assembled - it was truly a joy.
... Stumbling across The Black Eagles in the Circus tent - a group of acrobats from Tanzania - slick, strong and very entertaining
... Missing Lily Allen because we were on the top of a ferris wheel - sorry to miss Lily but what a fantastic view of the festival!
... Discovering that ventriloquism can be really funny (that was a surprise) when I saw Nina Conti and her monkey in the Cabaret tent
... Watching everyone contributing to an enormous mural by Hugh Jart (geddit?!)

And of course the mud. lots and lots of mud.

All of which sets me thinking about the Malawi Arts Festival ... the organising group met last time I was in Malawi and I think there is the potential for it to be a vibrant and exciting event which will make everyone sit up, get out and participate. Funding is slowly coming in and the ideas are flowing thick and fast. Watch this space for developments...

Birmingham and The Africa Consortium

2007-05-24T02:52:00.000-07:00

Just back from a very interesting day trip to Birmingham with Michael Walling, to attend the regional launch of the Africa Consortium and for a meeting at The Drum, one of the venues on the upcoming Border Crossings tour.

The Drum turns out to be a lovely building, full of activity and creativity. We were very impressed and very much hope that this is the model for the Bernie Grant Centre in Tottenham. It would be great to have a centre like this in London.

The Africa Consortium launch was at Birmingham Rep - another very impressive building but this time much more cool (temperature, not hipness) and English in feel. John Kani was performing in his new play, which we saw (see below) and he spoke at the launch. He is a marvellous speaker, inspirational. I came to the meeting with a fair amount of scepticism about this consortium, worried that this was UK Arts joining with other already well funded and powerful organisations to keep control of the African theatre scene, edging the little guys out. However, it seems I was needlessly anxious, as this actually seems like a rather wonderful scheme, giving us all access to information and somewhere to meet (both physically and virtually) which could spark off collaborative work. The upshot was that both Michael and I feel it would be a good thing to be members.

After the launch we went in to see Nothing But The Truth, John Kani's play, which was a huge disappointment. Of course his performance was great, as you would expect from one of the foremost actors of his generation, but the play was really awful. Our hearts sank as we took our seats and surveyed the set - an incredibly detailed, realistic box set of an African house with kitchen and living room on view, and doorways to the bedrooms. This immediately signalled that this was to be a traditional, realistic play, and we expected no surprises. Which was lucky, because there certainly were none - the whole thing was completely lacking in tension. Characters moved from kitchen to living room and back again, explaining themselves in minute and tedious detail at all stages and signalling the 'denoument' a long, long time before it came. It was a three hander, but the two young women were so underwritten that we never really got a glimpse of them as real people. One character, an African brought up in England was shallow, irritating and cliched - the actress did a good job with what she had, but didn't have a chance. Political comment was sort of stuck on over the domestic story, although I'm sure the intention was to show that the domestic tragedy sprang from the political situation. I'm afraid I wasn't convinced. All in all a very boring evening - 90 minutes which felt much, much longer.

good news

2007-05-18T11:14:00.000-07:00

Spent the day in The Theatre Consortium office catching up with some paperwork and finalising a funding application for RESPECT - my next Youth Theatre project. Fingers crossed that the funding comes in, as it's a really exciting project, and it would be so disappointing to cancel.

Finally managed to finalise Border Crossings' DILEMMA tour schedule with a couple of days at The Drum, Birmingham. What with that and the Barbican in Plymouth wanting us to extend the tour to include a couple of days there, we've got a pretty full tour shedule. Although if any of you blog readers out there run a venue, there are still a few days we'd like to fill in early November. However, the news from The Drum has meant that Michael and I will have a more relaxed weekend with our respective families - waiting for news has been a bit of a cliff hanger!

We're off to the launch of the Africa Consortium in Birmingham next week - will pop into The Drum to have a proper look at the space and to meet everyone there. It's a centre for promoting black and asian performance, and it would be great to tour AFTER MIKUYU there. We'll see.

old friends & colleagues

2007-05-16T11:52:00.000-07:00

Had a surprise today - an email from Pam Brooke, who I first worked for in Malawi. She was the brains and inspiration behind Story Workshop, Malawi's only Education Media NGO. It was through Story Workshop that I made contact with the wonderful Adam Stapleton of Penal Reform International, which in turn sparked the development of Nanzikambe's Active Learning programme, now exported all over the world via PRI's paralegal training programme. It's amazing how one woman's generosity in passing the project over to me in the first place can start something which is helping to reduce the prison populations in developing countries all over the world.

It was lovely to hear from Pam, who having cut the umbilical cord to Story Workshop, is living in Washington DC and advising on radio soap operas in several African countries. It was another reminder of how Africa gets under your skin and into your blood, however hard you try to leave.

bringing it all up to date

2007-05-14T11:17:00.000-07:00

Being rather new to this blogging lark, it's taken me an inordinate amount of time to set it all up ... but here we are at last!

It's been a rather eventful few weeks. At Easter I visited Malawi, and had some very positive meetings with various partners there. The British Council are interested in supporting AFTER MIKUYU as part of the Malawi Arts Festival I am in the first stages of organising, and I met with the other members of the Malawi Arts Festival Organising Group where we decided on the first steps. Watch this space for develoments, but if all goes well, this will be a very busy year.

As soon as I returned from Malawi, I was straight into organising Bilimankhwe Youth Arts' visit to Hampstead Theatre as part of the National Theatre's Connections Youth Festival. We were taking SCARY PLAY, with its young cast of 16, a touring set including doors set in frames on wheels, a dentists's chair, a coffin .... thanks to all the wonderful crew at Hampstead it all went smoothly. Judith Johnson, the playwright, was in the audience, and fortunately absolutely loved our production of her play. The youth theatre members were on a high for weeks.

A few days after the Hampstead show, I started to feel unwell, with chills and spiking fevers. A trip to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases confirmed what I suspected ... I had Malaria. And so did my husband Matthew, and one of my children, Freddy. So it was 5 days in hospital taking the dreadful quinine sulphate. I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a much less nasty cure for the disease, but the medics want to teach us a lesson for not taking anti-malarials (naughty naughty!). Whatever, I don't recommend quinine for anyone wanting to keep hold of their stomach contents. Enough said. Next time I'm definitely taking the tablets.

I've now started work on my Theatre Consortium colleague, Michael Walling's latest production for his company, Border Crossings. Called THE DILEMMA OF A GHOST, it's written by celebrated Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo and is a co-production with the National Theatre of Ghana. Spent the week finalising and confirming the tour details - so far it's opening at Leeds University and touring to Leicester Phoenix, The Bernie Grant Centre and the South Bank before going on to Ghana. Should be wonderful - see www.bordercrossings.org.uk for more details.