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Princess & The Hustler (Susan Elkin reviews)

Princess and the Hustler

Chinonyerem Odimba

Directed by Sara Amanda & Lande Belo

Tower Theatre

Star rating: 3

Chinonyerem Odimba’s 2019 play sets a family story of tentative reconciliation at the time of the 1963 Bus Boycott in Bristol. The Bristol Bus Company’s refusal to employ “coloureds” triggered a four month boycott which led to a climbdown and the first black bus conductor on a Bristol Bus. It influenced the  first race relations legislation which came  two years later.

Mavis (Ebony Skerritt), a first generation immigrant from Jamaica, has raised two children on her own having been abandoned by her husband, Wendell (Steven Burrell) who now reappears with another daughter, Lorna (Lakeisha Louise)

The first half of the play focuses on the complexity of these relationships. Mavis’s ten year old daughter, Phyllis or “Princess” (Hannah Morgan-Johnson) is delighted to have a sister. Her almost grown up son “Junior” (Aaron Mante) resents the intrusion and soon gets involved in demonstrations in the city, to his mother’s horror.

Meanwhile there’s Margot (Lucy Moss) Mavis’s friend upstairs, the only white character in the play, who represents the face of quietly pernicious, casual racism which all the others have to deal with continually.

The second half of the play is tighter although the ending is clumsily drawn out with, among other things a dramatically superfluous recitation of the names of black women who have triumphed against prejudice.

Skerritt and Burrell are both fine actors who play off each other well but they are working far too hard with their accents. Of course these people would have had strong Jamaican accents, in a way that their children born in Britain wouldn’t and that is well observed. On the other hand, this is a drama and if clarity gets lost in the voice work then it falls at the first hurdle. I missed at least a third of what Skerrit and Burrell said, especially in the first half.

Moss – whose character is tarty and forthright but vulnerable and lonely – adopts a forced, rather unconvincing Bristolian accent. She too is overworking it  and sounds, I’m afraid, irritatingly like Pam Ayres when she’s hamming it up. It is, however, clearly enough delivered and Moss makes this rather sad woman pretty convincing. The warmth and love is amongst the other characters. It’s Margot, ultimately, who’s the outsider.

Morgan Johnson finds plenty of childlike glee, temper and distress in Princess who is having to deal with prejudice at school but whose dream is to become a beauty princess. Louise creates a different sort of child in Lorna, distressed, torn and trying to make the best of things.

And there’s a fine performance from Mante who presents, initially, a school boy disobeying his angry mother and then develops his character into a brooding, troubled young man, passionate about the bus boycott and longing for the status quo to be restored at home. He gazes meaningfully into the distance, reacts tellingly to what others are saying and speaks with rich conviction.

The 1960s clothes (costume design by Laura Coulton) are delightful. Mavis appears in several very pretty, flattering outfits and I wore a dress almost exactly like Margot’s pink one, short length with flared sleeves, to my 21st birthday party. The ambience is spot on.

Author information
Susan Elkin Susan Elkin is an education journalist, author and former secondary teacher of English. She was Education and Training Editor at The Stage from 2005 - 2016
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