Palm Wine & Stout: Bbc Suffolk

Initially, I wasn't entirely sure what to think of the play from its title Palm Wine & Stout which I caught at the Sir John Mills Theatre in Ipswich.

After all, the title brings up an array of ideas into one's mind.

However, I found that after the first few minutes with a brilliant entrance by the cast, involving comedic interaction with the audience, the play captured my attention and kept me entranced until the very end.

Palm Wine & Stout can be described as a culture clash between British and Nigerian societies that utilises great music, choreography and excellent storytelling to create a wonderful experience for the audience that takes us through the ups and downs of the emotional spectrum.

The story follows the journey of Taiye (portrayed by Joe Jacobs), from England back to his father's homeland.

He has been guided to Africa by the spirit of his dead brother and on this journey he sees the differences in family life compared to what he is used to in England.

The storytelling is done in a quite a fast and fluid manner with amazing instances of humour that had the audience laughing.

However, this does not leave the audience feeling lost due to the beautiful crafting of this piece by the writer Segun Lee-French.

The play makes great usage of music and lighting to create several thrilling scenes which adds a another level of atmospheric depth with songs sung in Nigerian and English.

The music sets the pace very well and helps the transition from one scene to another splendidly.

Contrasting characters

The cast gave an absolutely wonderful performance even though there were only four actors on stage creating a multitude of unique characters with individual accents.

The small stage set gave the actors a fast and easy manner with which they could switch from one character to another, thereby never slowing the pace of the play.

This also helped in utilising various costumes to great effect throughout the play.

Ipswich actress Antoinette Tagoe did an amazing job playing numerous roles, each usually on stage one after the other.

Helen Grady and Zackary Momoh played out contrasting characters whose stage presence provided quite a lot of the humour along with creating great dramatic tones.

Joe Jacobs fitted right into the skin of his character by giving a brilliant performance and keeping the audience involved through the inner monologues where he almost appears to be speaking to each of us individually.

The play, although quite funny during most of the first half got a lot darker in tone in the second half, while retaining the humour.

The story is of a man coming to terms with his culture and heritage, but as it draws towards its end the play seems to centre around his family within this culture.

The main message seems to be how having each other can help get us through dark times as well as showing a sense of unity between family and community.

Uppahar Subba