Insuffolk: A Cocktail To Remember And Recommend

Eastern Angles' 2014 Spring Tour gives a second spin on the road for Palm Wine & Stout which was first staged locally in 2010 as part of Black History Month, so it must be a play the company is fond of and feels is strong enough for the prestigious Spring Tour slot.

They're not wrong. It's a really interesting, challenging and sometimes unsettling piece of work by Mancunian Lee-French, based on his own visit to Nigeria in 1999 with his (white) mother to meet his Nigerian father and relatives, although he's made it clear it's not strictly biographical.

In fictional form Lee-French becomes light skinned Taiye, an urban British likely lad seldom short of an opinion or the means to voice it but also intelligent and emotionally drawn to the idea of ‘home' that his new Nigerian identity may provide. Ricci McLeod is great in the role, masculine but vulnerable. His internal monologues are some the play's best moments and his invocations of the twin brother who died shortly after birth are sincere and disturbing.

His mother, Jane (Sioned Jones), is initially very nervous to be in the uncertain care of Tayie's half-brother, Femi (Itoya Osagiede) but her reunion with Taiye's father, Abraham (Osagiede), revives warm memories of their relationship and she relaxes to become more accepting of his behaviour than second wife and Femi's mother, Stella (Antoinette Marie Tagoe), who makes no effort to hide her jealousy and bitterness towards his new wife and family.

Act One of Palm Wine & Stout covers the first three weeks which Taiye and Jane spend in Nigeria while Act Two concerns their return visit when a tragic accident forces Taiye to address complicated and alien family and village politics (and economics) as Abraham's eldest son. Such intrigue is of, course, unknown in the English countryside...

In this second half, Taiye's new-found feelings of attachment to his Nigerian ‘home' are put to the test by a plethora of local superstitions and suspicions, although there is a generous amount of joyous African music to offset the darker spirits.

If you're an admirer of Eastern Angles' regionally inspired productions then under no circumstance should the setting of Palm Wine & Stout put you off seeing it on its extensive tour over the next three months. Its themes are universal ones which you will recognise: family, fatherhood, the city and the village, and the meaning of ‘home' - where the heart is, or where the hurt is ?

You'll also discover why stout is a Nigerian staple. Guinness, they say, is good for you but add some Palm Wine to that and you've really got a cocktail to remember and recommend.

Doug Coombes