THEATRE REVIEWS

A run down café with few customers, and those that do frequent the place are seedy, is an unlikely place to find a man who is trying to do the right thing for himself and everyone else. This then is the setting for Kwame Kwei-Armah's play about the the way the Yardies are affecting life in the London borough of Hackney. The set designed by Bunny Christie is first rate and transforms well.

We see Deli, played with great feeling by Kwame Kwei-Armah, running a café dedicated to his mother under the eye of the local Yardie gangs. His way of dealing with their threats is to befriend a Yardies Digger (Shaun Parkes) and thereby stave off demands for protection money. Nothing is ever that simple when his son Ashley (Michael Obiora) starts to descend down the wayward path where his brother has already strayed and is about to be released from prison. His father Clifton, played by Don Warrington showing what he is capable of, is no better and is also returning home. Their simultaneous arrival culminates in the Yardies disposing of the son in a shooting and the father being rejected by his son Deli. Add a reforming female, Anastasia (Doña Croll) and the father's friend Baygee (Oscar James) to the mix and you have an intriguing plot emerging. This is a play directed by Angus Jackson dealing with black culture within a predominantly white country and how they deal with their surroundings. The observation by the writer is profound as he deals with some of the problems that are troubling the black community in this part of London in an earnest endeavour to tell anyone who will listen of the problems, so that they may, with effort by all concerned, be solved.

This is a play you should make every effort to see. A nice touch is the incidental music supplied by Rory McFarlane with the help of the writers Juldeh Camara and Atongo Zimba. We shall see many more plays from Kwame Kwei-Armah and it is hoped that they will cover many more subjects and encopass the wider community. It will make you think. © BA

“Elmina's Kitchen” is in Leeds on the 30th March to the 9th April, 2005. Council car parking charge £1 from 5.30pm.