Play On!

Play On! description

The UK’s awesome Black theatre company, Talawa, is staging a revival of the musical Play On!, the popular jazz musical based on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. This show has been thrilling audiences since 1996 with its beautiful Duke Ellington score and cool 1940s Cotton Club setting.

The age-old question the plot asks remains as important today as it always has been: What does it take for a woman to make it in a man’s world? As it turns out, the answer is ‘a whole load of cunning and a gender-fluid attitude’.

A familiar plot set in 1940s Harlem, New York

Meet Vy, a talented songwriter swimming in the male-controlled waters of the 1940s Harlem jazz scene. Her uncle tries to put her off but she sticks to her ambitions. Rather than accept defeat, Vy goes underground. As a man, she meets club owner The Duke and nightclub singer Lady Liv, and so the fun begins. Like Twelfth Night, you’re left wondering if she’ll make it. Come along and see.

Shakespeare... re-imagined

This stylish reimagining of The Bard’s beloved play takes Shakespeare to a whole new place. The staging delivers a sophisticated atmosphere and Ellington’s musical magic is strung through the action like pearls.

It’s directed by Talawa’s Artistic Director Michael Buffong (A Kind of People, All My Sons), who fuses the whole thing together with dazzling street dance choreography.

Duke Ellington won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize Special Award for music in 1999, having won 13 Grammys over his 30 year career in jazz and been awarded a posthumous 14th Grammy. This score exemplifies his music.

The result of all this classy stuff is a spectacular musical that adores. The choreography is thrilling, it’s a cracking plot, the theatre company behind it is highly respected for its work, and the production team must be proud. Well done to Talawa Theatre Company, The Belgrade Theatre Coventry, Birmingham Hippodrome, Bristol Old Vic, Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and Wiltshire Creative for bringing us this fabulous musical treat.

Playing at Lyric Hammersmith

King Street, Lyric Square, London, W6 0QL GB (venue info)

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