Forget Primark or Poundland, the great-value destination in NW6 has to be the salon offering tanning for 45p. Yes – 45p. You too can look as though you’ve been Tangoed for less than the cost of a can of the nuclear-orangey fizz. Nine shillings in old money doesn’t buy you a stamp, a tea, a loaf of bread, a Twix or most daily papers. If you’re pale and wan about this, trot along to Kilburn High Road where for 45p, you can just be wan.
Tricycle Theatre, Kilburn, London NW6 (Image: Bricoleurbanism)
Skin colour is the theme of the Tricycle Theatre’s Red Velvet, based on the true story of African-American actor Ira Aldridge who shocked 1830s London when he played the lead in Othello. The play’s poignant ending is set in 1867 when we see Ira ‘white-ing up’ to be Lear. While agitation surrounding the (final) abolition of slavery in the 1830s is a background theme, the play does not mention the American Civil War. This omission is all the more curious as the hostility to Ira’s Othello is claimed to be ‘political’ (‘It is. It always is’), lending tacit support to the anti-abolitionist cause. Writer Lolita Chakrabarti has ducked the War whose repercussions are with us today, in favour of making the audience feel good about itself. Gasps went round the theatre as the verbatim 1830s reviews were read out, the gaspiest when the N-word was used. It is too simple to generate a miasma of self-congratulation in any theatre by comparing today’s enlightened attitudes with those current 180 years ago. Whatever next? Some nice warm self-righteousness for spotting sexism in a 1975 episode of The Sweeney?
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