Sancho and Me
Written and Performed by Paterson Joseph
Music by Ben Park, associate director
Co-directed by designer, Michael Vale
Chichester Festival Theatre
Star rating: 3.5
This enjoyable, educative and often witty show is an unusual blend. It weaves Paterson Joseph’s own North London background as the fifth child of Caribbean immigrants with the story of Charles Ignatius Sancho. He was an unusual eighteenth century former slave who became a musician, author, householder and British voter – rubbing shoulders with the likes of Samuel Johnson, Hogarth and Handel on the way as well as meeting George II.
We start with Joseph in a casual T shirt and trousers addressing the audience as himself and referring to Sancho, alongside musician Ben Park who provides almost continuous music, some live (electric double bass and more) and some recorded and cued to accompany Joseph’s words. In the second half Joseph is dressed as Sancho in a pretty accurate representation of the clothes worn in the Gainsborough portrait, a copy of which is displayed on stage. As Sancho, he refers to “Mr Joseph” and the things he has discovered, including the 2022 novel The Secret Diaires of Charles Ignatius Sancho, which is – of course – on sale in the foyer. It’s quite a conceit to pull off but Joseph has all the charisma needed to carry the audience with him. After all, his status is such that he gets a round of applause simply for arriving on stage as the beginning so there’s plenty of warmth in the room.
One of the most accomplished actors of his generation, Joseph demonstrates some fine voice work in this show from his own father’s heavily accented St Lucian accent to the strange hybrid voice of Anne Osborne, whom Sancho adores and marries, and the rather clipped RP of Sancho himself. He also talks with his body and eyes to such an extent that he changes almost beyond recognition as he shape-shifts from role to role. Moreover, self-deprecating as he is about his musicianship, he’s a passable singer and ukulele player and his high-speed turn on the hand-held drum is quite a show stopper.
After the interval Joseph invites questions from the audience to him as Sancho which requires a certain amount of adept ad-libbing but mostly he deftly turns the questions to relate to his prepared script. It works reasonably well and creates a sense of immediacy as he walks up the Minerva’s aisles to address individuals.
I read Joseph’s novel when it was first published and interviewed him last year in connection with it, so I was keen to see this show which has already toured extensively. So I was familiar with this extraordinary story of boy born and orphaned on a slave ship, taken in by three spinster sisters in Greenwich and then befriended and sponsored by John Montague who had all the connections needed to launch Sancho into society, but this show presents it in a new light.
As himself, Joseph stresses that black people have always been there – obviously. And they weren’t all slaves and servants although, until recently, that’s how they tended to appear in the theatre and in public imagination. He didn’t discover Sancho until he was in his 30s when he started reading extensively. He uses a pile of books on stage to stress this. Thus, this pleasing show gently helps to promote black history and raise awareness in a predominantly white audience, although it wears its political agenda very lightly.