reviews

Here, for anyone who'd like to see them, are the two reviews so far ...

FINANCIAL TIMES :

"The ensemble is vibrant and muscular ... the sum of the whole is raw and vibrant. You can smell the Mikuyu prison jail from your seat" \

4 stars ****

click here for the full review

TIME OUT LONDON

"Misheck Mzumara's depiction of Mapanje flashes with a desperate, earnest charm ...

" A play which bursts into moments of shocking frustration and touching humanity"

3 stars ***

click here for the full review
 

**** four stars!!

We have a four-star review in the Financial Times. Such a relief when someone really gets what it is we are trying to achieve! So now it's all hands to the plough to try to convert an excellent review into ticket sales.

Time Out were there, so it's just a matter of waiting for the review (a bit nervously: just because one critic loved it doesn't mean another will). We're still trying to get the other London papers. 

Here's a rather shocking fact for those of you who may be interested: the Evening Standard only has one theatre reviewer, and he is currently in Edinburgh. Have I misunderstood? Is the Evening Standard not a LONDON paper? Are we not in the middle of the LONDON Cultural Olympiad? So what in God's name is the reviewer doing in Edinburgh?

Onwards and upwards I suppose. A small but select audience last night and it looks to be the same tonight.  My family are in, so it had better be a good one!

four star review in the Financial Times

opening night

Well it's happened! The press night was wonderful. Free glasses of cava all round, with some fab food and a great show. The place was pretty full and the actors rose to the occasion, so now it's just a case of waiting for the reviews to come out. Let's hope they will be kind.

Stratford-on-Avon also went really well, although the performance space is much more challenging. However, The audience absolutely loved it, and there were people standing to applaud at the end, so I think it was OK! 

The journey to this point has been rocky, to say the least. Poor Dipo Katimba had her visa refused, so we were challenged at the very start, having to replace her with a UK based actress. Angella Ching'amba, who played Lady M in my African Macbeth, and Titania in An African Dream and is now based in Nottingham, stepped into the breach. This was great, because she was also a member of the team at the start of this project, developing and performing in After Mikuyu back in 2006.

In the mean time, I discovered that Misheck, who is playing Jack Mapanje, was committed to another project, and had performances booked right up to the day before we were due to open in Stratford. Some internet diplomacy ensued and we managed to get them to agree to release him a little early, to give us three full days of rehearsal before opening the show. 

The next thing was having to find extra money when Nanzikambe's promised funding was delayed. Air tickets had to be bought whether the funds were in or not! So some borrowing from Peter to pay Paul was organised ...

So the project was still on! Hurrah! And then ... seven of the actors missed their flight. For a while there it was touch and go but after a day which took more than three years off my life, a plane took off from Kamuzu International Airport with all seven of them on board. It seems that Mphundu has a golden tongue and talked them into changing the flights at no extra cost. A miracle! But when they arrived their katundu (luggage and stuff) didn't. It was still in Addis Ababa. So we had the actors, but not the set or costumes.

So all in all, it's completely amazing that we have a show - and not just a show, a good show. Which just goes to show that Malawian performers are resilient, resourceful and pretty fabulous. Second night in London tonight ... fingers crossed. 

Caine Prize and the Arts Council

This week has been a busy one. The Caine Prize winner will be announced on Monday, and the five shortlisted candidates are in town - including my friend Stanley Kenani who has been shortlisted for the second time (the first time was in 2008).

So it was off to the Royal Overseas League on Thursday for the first of a series of panel discussions with the shortlisted writers. A very lively, robust and entertaining evening, made even more fun by the fact that Stanley had had a couple of glasses of wine before going on stage, which loosened his tongue marvellously. They were asked the question about whether they thought of themselves as African writers and the blue touch paper was lit. Stanley said he wasn't going to answer that question until writers from European countries were asked if they through of themselves as 'European writers'. "This question really pisses me off" he said. Fantastic stuff. He got a well-deserved round of applause.

Today it was the Royal African Society's 2 day festival at SOAS. Again, a most interesting discussion with the Caine Prize writers. Made more so for me by the addition of James Gibbs in the audience - a rare pleasure to have a chat with this grandee of the African Theatre world. I also took the opportunity of asking Dr Mpalive Msiska (reader in English at Birkbeck University) if he would be interested in chairing a Q&A with Jack during the run of the show. In theory he is - but a family wedding in Malawi slap bang in the middle of the run may de-rail the plan. We'll see.

Tomorrow I am back at SOAS for an event featuring Jack Mapanje and the publisher of his memoir, Becky Nana Ayebia. Looking forward to a stimulating discussion, and of course Jack is always very entertaining.

Other developments this week have included the confirmation of our Arts Council funding - a great relief - and the ensuing flurry of activity. I have now employed a Company Stage Manager, the lovely Kala Simpson, and a very talented young Lighting Designer, Charlie Jones. Charlie has some fab ideas, and it was a joy to talk some of them through with him. This is going to be a very exciting show!

expanding the team

And so the expansion continues ... today Amy and I held interviews for some new people, as we are overwhelmed by the amount of administration and organisation we have to do in the next few weeks. Found some great people, and offers have been made. I'll let you know if and when they're accepted!

This is an anxious time ... still waiting to hear from the Arts Council, fingers tightly crossed in anticipation. However, we're getting more and more people involved - Chickenshed are now official parters, and have given us some rehearsal space, which makes a massive difference, and I had a very positive meeting with Border Crossings on collaborations during the Africa Salon at The Africa Centre during August. We will be performing 'Crocodiles', and Border Crossings will be curating a series of African events, including a workshop delivered by our extraordinary company of multi-talented Malawians.

But still ... if the Arts Council don't come through, we can run the project but it will be on a shoestring, and very difficult to do. So we've got everything crossed. Trying not to think about it while I embark on the final re-write of Crocodiles.

co-incidences and serendipitous connections

Had a wonderful time yesterday at Chickenshed, where Border Crossings were running Sunshine on a Rainy Day, a one-day mini festival of Southern African performance. Michael Walling (Artistic Director of Border Crossings) had invited me to be on the panel for the discussion. I didn't know what to expect but was delighted to find myself sitting between Arifani Moyo and Christopher Maphosa, both amazingly interesting Zimbabweans. Ari is studying for his doctorate, and also worked for Nanzikambe, the company I founded - although a long time after I had returned to the UK so this was a big - and happy - surprise to me. Christopher was there because his life story was the inspiration behind the play we were to see later in the day - a one man show called The Rain That Washes, written by Dave Carey, directed by Kieran Fay and performed - quite brilliantly - by Ashley Maynard.

The discussion ranged widely, taking in some of my favourite things to talk about ... the role of political theatre in Africa; how Shakespeare can be used to get a subversive message across that would be censored in a modern play; theatre as education as well as entertainment, for both adults and children. Of course I talked at length about Jack Mapanje and And Crocodiles Are Hungry At Night ...

Earlier in the day we saw a lovely film called Kini and Adams. Made in 1997 it has never had a general release here, which is little short of a scandal. Directed by Idrissa Ouedraogo in English, and set in an unspecified Southern African country it is a road movie where they never actually leave town, is funny and tragic and an absolute gem. I only wish I could tell you where to get a copy. Associate Director Amy Bonsall was with me and was surprised and delighted to see that the film was featuring John Kani, who became a friend when she worked on Hamlet with him in Cape Town. 

Later we had a chance to have a long chat with Dave Carey. He has also been to Blantyre, visiting Nanzikambe and working with Mphundu Mjumira and Dipo Katimba on their Street Children project. So you can imagine his pleasure at the news that Mphundu is in the Crocodiles cast and will be arriving in just a few short weeks. We are trying to arrange one of our workshops to be held at Chickenshed.

So the day had a very Malawian flavour; it was wonderful to find these connections. Michael was talking about his work with David Kerr in Botswana - another of my Malawian theatre contacts as David taught for many years at the University of Malawi. (I'm proud to say I introduced them, although I'm sure they would have met sooner or later without me!). 


So now I have to get on with the pre-production. We have had some very bad news, as Dipo has had her visa application denied, and will not be able to be part of the UK productions. However, we are incredibly lucky that Angella Ching'amba is here, living in Nottingham and available to come to London to be in the show. We will greatly miss Dipo, but as Angella was in the research and development piece, After Mikuyu, it will also be a joyful reunion. 

the journey continues

Been back just over a month and so much has happened. After advertising on the Young Vic directors' forum, as of today I now have two new associates:

Amy Bonsall has joined as Associate Director, and she will direct a production of Romeo and Juliet to be performed in the gardens of Hall's Croft in Stratford. She has only just been appointed, and already I'm wondering how I managed without her energy and ideas.

Working with Amy as Assistant Director for R&J will be Roe Lane, who is coming to the end of her MA in Text and Performance at Birkbeck/RADA and has been associated with my Malawian theatre work since 2004 when she joined Nanzikambe for her gap year. I'm really looking forward to having her around again, and will be shamelessly exploiting her intelligence and good nature!

The second of my new Associates is Jemma Gross, who has galloped in on her white charger to take over responsibility for the PR and Marketing of And Crocodiles Are Hungry At Night and Romeo and Juliet. I am feeling very lucky!

Of course it's not all plain sailing. Today has also seen some very worried messages from Misheck in Malawi who is planning on travelling to Germany this coming Monday for the project with Theater Konstanz. Misheck and Dipo from our Crocs  company are both also doing the German project; they already have German visas (these took 2 days to process) and have sent their  passports to the British High Commission to get the UK visas before the trip to Germany. They have now been waiting a month with no feedback from UK visas - so now they have had to ask to cancel the application and have their passports returned urgently. Apparently the UK government 'outsource their visa function' to South Africa so the passports are not even in Malawi. Fingers crossed that the passports make it back to Malawi in time - and we will have to start the visa application all over again. This does not make me proud to be British. 

Also in the last month Amy and I have prepared and submitted the Arts Council application for Grants for the Arts. A long and arduous process, it's also very useful as it makes us be truly specific about why we want to do the project and what we hope to achieve. I only hope the application is strong enough to beat off the competition (at the moment only 45% of applications get approved for funding). Now our attention must turn to all the other funding applications waiting to be completed ...