A wonderful one-man show that had the entire audience gripped from beginning to end.
Award-winning Gerel Falconer, who writes and performs this hour-long performance, is sensational. He moves seamlessly between different characters, from posh, white best friend to drug-dealing cousin, from wise uncle to loving mum. Each voice is unique, each time his manner and accent change so much (helped also by clever changes in lighting) that you are never confused as to who he is now being. He held a packed theatre in the palm of his hand.
It's a no-win situation for a black kid, growing up in a country obsessed with class and race, and Geral deftly shows how that impacts his entire life through no fault of his own, no malice or hatred to anyone. If lower-class, black were on one side of the wrestling ring and upper class / privilege / white was on the other, Gerel's play is him being punched from one side of the ring to the other.
This Jamaican-British boy grows up in London, battling with culture, class and identity. Sometimes, he's winning (university / girlfriend) and often he's losing (beaten up / humiliated / self-harm). He plays being a lovely kid, confused and bewildered, so well that the entire audience literally roared with approval when he gets a place at university. But every time he gets somewhere or something, it results in unexpected humiliation, failure or rejection.
Often, it's painful to watch, showing 'white fragility' up for the severe harm it causes. But it's also painful, because the black community hasn't got his back either. His sage Uncle puts the problem perfectly in the line "we should not be fighting our brothers, we should be standing beside one another".
Gerel plays kid-in-the-middle of so much noise, trying to get it right, trying to make his way, to make a success of life and constantly getting aggressed, put down or thwarted. There's such a sense of not being able to win; try to be 'white' to fit in with the white boys who have better only gets you rejected from the black community, while you can't ever be accepted anyway.
Do go see this while you can!