Fix Up

Description

It's Black History month but you wouldn't know it in Tottenham where Revive PLC plan to turn Kwesi's All Black African Party hotbed into luxury flats, and it looks like Kiyi's 'conscious' bookstore will soon go the same way. And then a beautiful visitor shows up in their midst and life goes from bad to worse. Set against the inexorable march of progress in contemporary London, Kwame Kwei-Armah's second play for the National explores race and roots with verve and wit. Being around too much white folk. I seen the bluest of blackest men get too much exposure bam, they lose their rhythm. Put on a James Brown tune and they start doing the Charleston to ras!

Kwame Kwei-Armah won the Peggy Ramsay award for his first play, Bitter Herb (1998), which was subseq uently put on by The Bristol Old Vic, where he also became writer-in-residence. He followed this up with the musical Blues Brother, Soul Sister which toured the UK in 2001. He also co-wrote the musica l Big Nose (an adaptation of Cyrano) which was performed at The Belgrade Theatre, Coventry in 1999. Elmina's Kitchen was staged at the Cottesloe Theatre at the National Theatre in 2003 and was publish ed by Methuen.

'What is striking about his richly eloquent new play is that it deals with a subject that has specific racial resonances but a wider application: the sacrifice of historical identity to the insatiable demands of brute commerce.' * Michael Billington, The Guardian * 'With Fix Up Kwei-Armah is showing signs of greatness. His triumph is to elegantly represent the conflicting elements of Britain's black community through his different characters.' * John Nathan, Jewish Chronicle * Fix Up 'has glistening dialogue. It has a fascinating, twisting argument about the difficulty for black Britons of retrieving their history from secrets and concealments.' * Observer *