Eh-oh!

Last night I went to the Royal Exchange with Camille, Jonny and Mandy to see Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, a play about a band led by “the Mother of the Blues” making a record in Chicago in 1927.

The four band members, and Ma herself, expressed the challenges faced by black people in white America, where an eight year old boy might see his mother raped by white men and then his father hanged and burned alive for taking revenge; where a talented voice could be sought after, but the person behind the voice ignored; where no black man could ever cash a cheque and where no black person, however much money they had, could expect to catch a cab.

I found it pretty engrossing and largely well-acted and directed. The humour in the play was well delivered although, in the end, that may have detracted from the darkness in it. At least I think that’s why when one of the band members stabbed another in the final scene, over nothing more than a pair of shoes, I was a bit surprised that it had really happened and that the play was all over.

The Royal Exchange billed it as starring Huggy Bear of Starsky and Hutch fame, but for me, the best performance was from Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. I could also quite happily have heard and seen more of Ma Rainey herself, pictured here. She was played by Johnnie Fiori who is also, would you believe……….the voice of Madeleine’s much loved Teletubbies, La –La and Po (or as she says Wa-wa, Po).